Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is completely beyond me that Australia has gained a significant international reputation for being slow on the uptake when it comes to electric vehicles. With the sad demise of Holden, our last Australian car manufacturer, and a failure to invest and embrace new technologies, Australia has recently been called the automotive third world. Despite practically every major carmaker in the world planning to convert and converting their fleets to electric vehicles with tight targets in place, in 2020 only 0.7 per cent of new cars sold in Australia were electric.

Whilst I was pleased to see the New South Wales Liberal government this week announce a $500 million electric car vehicle strategy, I was also bemused. As Labor leader I took to the 2019 election a policy to increase the number of new electric car sales in Australia with a focus on government fleets and to invest in charging stations on our national highways. The Prime Minister, with his only nodding acquaintance with the truth, said in his inimitable style that I wanted to 'end the weekend' and that I was 'declaring war on the weekend'. For all their spin, though, smarter Liberals have quietly crab walked away from their 'dead weekend' nonsense as they see other conservative governments move forward into the future. Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, and shadow minister for innovation, Ed Husic, have underlined Labor's commitment to catching up with the rest of the world. This will be a boon for consumers and a boon for our environment.