Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I'll just briefly detain the House to outline why the Labor Party will not be supporting the honourable member for Melbourne's amendments. Firstly, of course, the government's record on electric vehicles is utterly appalling—he's right to make that point—but I don't believe it is correct to link the two issues. We have our own electric vehicle policy in the Labor Party: to make electric vehicles cheaper and to give Australians more choice by taking taxes off them. I don't think you need to link this legislation with another bill in the Senate, which the Greens are only just introducing now. I think this bill should be passed or defeated on its merits, not linked to another piece of legislation.

Secondly, while I'd have no problem with the Productivity Commission reviewing this legislation's operation after a period of time—I'd be quite supportive of that, in fact—there is a process for determining Productivity Commission referrals. It can be done in a couple of ways, but including it in the legislation is, I believe, not the appropriate way on this particular occasion. So we will not be supporting the Greens' amendments.

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