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

Peter Stray from She Oaks in the Golden Plains of Victoria wrote to the minister for transport and me and said:

I am writing to urge you to make our standards strong and well designed. We need them to be competitive and effective so Australian farmers can get our hands on cleaner utes and cars that are cheaper to run.

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Farming is getting harder.

The Leader of the Nationals doesn't care about Peter Stray. Peter writes:

With an El Nino declared, we started destocking because I don't want to go through another season wondering if I can feed my animals.

…   …   …

We want cleaner, lower emissions farm operations—including our vehicles. But we can't make the business case stack up because the choice of electric and fuel efficient vehicles on the market in Australia is so limited. They're also far too expensive.

Opposition members interjecting—

They really don't want to hear Peter. He writes:

There are utes being made with ranges of around 800km now. If we can sort our fuel efficiency standards out, those utes will make it to Australia instead of just to the EU and US.

I already drive further and pay more for fuel than those in the city, so the cost of living impact is getting increasingly real.

Australia is one of the only wealthy countries in the world without legislated national fuel efficiency standards. If we get our standards right, it'll be an incentive for manufacturers to send far more low and zero emissions new vehicles (including farm utes) to Australia.

Farmers and regional Australians want stronger Fuel Efficiency Standards.

That's from Peter Stray, a multigenerational farmer from Golden Plains in Victoria. Why don't you be more like Peter?

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