PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Mr VENNING (Grey) (17:20): Here we go again—another motion from this Albanese Labor government desperately trying to convince Australians they are doing a good job. Once again, we have the rhetoric. Once again, the divergence from reality is as plain as rain on a window pane.
The New Vehicle Efficiency Standard is setting emission targets on the new vehicles car makers are bringing into Australia. The mechanism is forcing car makers to earn or trade credits to meet emission targets. This is nothing short of an emissions trading scheme.
Car makers who fail to meet targets face penalties. A penalty is otherwise known as a tax—a carbon tax. By jacking up the price of petrol and diesel cars, Labor is trying to force Australians into EVs.
EVs may be suitable for Australians living in capital cities, but, for the regional, rural and remote Australians that I represent, they are not practical. That is exactly the issue with Labor's approach to policy making. They don't consider anybody outside of inner city Sydney when they draw up these shoddy policies.
If those opposite are so sure Australians back their green ideology, then they have nothing to fear with the free market. Let people choose the car they want to drive. Let us not forget that, earlier this year, the Labor government bought an electric prime mover and said, 'Great, diesel is dead.' I'll get to that one later.
The electric car discount is a policy shipwreck. It is a boondoggle from start to finish. The scheme is costing taxpayers—costing you—15 times what the Treasury forecasted, and most people using it are high-income earners.
The Labor government is saying: 'We don't care that you can't see a GP. We don't care that we've closed birthing services in Jamestown and Crystal Brook. We don't care about manufacturing jobs in Whyalla, in Port Augusta or in Port Pirie.
But look, here is a shiny new EV that's cheap and it's made in China. Look how good we are.' Give me a break! ATO data shows that more than 50 per cent of people claiming the discount earn over $135,000 a year, and it is now costing taxpayers $1.4 billion each and every year.
Every Australian loves a discount. I love a discount. But, when the government gives us one, we must not forget it is taking from another.
High-income earners should not have their EVs subsidised by their fellow Australians. This scheme does not pass the pub test, and it should be scrapped. Under a Taylor coalition government, it will go.
But what does the industry think? Well, in April the chief executive of Kia Australia, whose brand has benefited from rising EV sales, called for the scheme to be scrapped. He said: There's a bit of middle-class welfare going on, and I think it's just inequitable.
When the people selling the cars say, 'Scrap it,' the government should listen. I don't care what type of car you want to buy; taxpayers should not subsidise one type of car and be taxed for buying another, especially when EVs simply don't work for people that drive long distances in the bush. It is not the government's job to pick winners and losers, but that is what this government seems to do.
At this rate, you won't be able to turn a corner without the energy minister telling you which way to go. Back to the electric truck—when the Prime Minister brought an EV truck from Sydney to Canberra and said, 'Diesel is dead.' Well, diesel is not dead. Diesel is what gets the grain off the paddock.
Diesel is what gets the food on your plate. Fifty-two per cent of the energy consumed in this nation is still liquid fuels. The electric-car discount is a policy shipwreck.
In relation to the electric truck, I did some research. The biggest electric prime mover has a 700-megawatt-hour battery. If I put that prime mover on one of our loaded road trains on the farm, the range is somewhere between 150 and 300 kilometres.
On that stat alone, it is completely unfit for purpose. But it gets worse. If I plug that truck into a five-kilowatt SWER line on the farm and turn off all our appliances, it takes 5.5 days to charge.
It just does not work, especially now as we're coming into harvest.