Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

There are two amendments that we are going to be debating tonight, both of which have been put forward by the Greens and by Senator David Pocock. I move amendment (1) on sheet 1746 revised:

(1) Schedule 1, page 5 (after line 8), at the end of the Schedule, add:

8 Review of operation of electric car disco unt

(1) The Minister must cause a review to be undertaken, in accordance with this item, of the operation of:

(a) the provisions of the Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment Act 1986 that are inserted or amended by this Schedule; and

(b) any provisions of the Customs Tariff Act 1995 that are inserted or amended pursuant to Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 5) 2022, which was moved in the House of Representatives on 2 August 2022 and of which notice was given by the legislative instrument numbered F2022L01001.

(2) The review must relate to the operation of those provisions, as so inserted or amended, during the 3 years from the commencement of this Schedule and, in particular, their effectiveness in encouraging the uptake of cars that are zero or low emissions vehicles.

(3) Without limiting subitem (2), the review must include consideration of:

(a) whether the operation of some or all of those provisions, as so inserted or amended, should continue; and

(b) what types of motor vehicles should be covered by the provisions.

(4) The conduct of the review must include consultation with the public about the matters to which the review relates.

(5) The review must be completed, and a report on the review must be given to the Minister, within 18 months after the end of the 3 years from the commencement of this Schedule.

(6) The Minister must:

(a) cause the contents of the report to be made available to the public as soon as practicable, and in any event within 28 days, after the Minister receives the report; and

(b) cause a copy of the report to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the Minister receives the report.

This is an amendment to review the operations of how successful this measure is actually going to be at increasing the use of electric vehicles. We've had a lot of debate during the debate on this bill about the effectiveness of this measure and whether this is the appropriate measure and the most effective measure to increase the use of electric vehicles.

As I said in my second reading contribution, the Greens are supporting this bill. It's a small step forward, and we believe there are much more significant measures that need to be taken to really kickstart the use of electric vehicles. But this is an important measure, and it's an important measure for be getting electric vehicles into fleets. It's an important measure to then be able to have electric vehicles flowing through as second-hand vehicles. But we thought it very appropriate, given there's a whole raft of different ways we could be supporting the use of electric vehicles, although we actually think that getting decent fuel efficiency standards and carbon dioxide standards is probably the most important thing to do, and we are hoping that the government will introduce something along those lines. In the meantime we thought it would be appropriate to have a review in place to determine whether this legislation is effective.

Basically, the review would occur after three years from the commencement and it would include consideration of whether the operation of some or all of these provisions should continue and what types of vehicles should be covered by the provisions. Of course, what types of vehicles goes to the point of the issue of zero-emission vehicles versus low-emission vehicles, which is in the other amendment that Senator Pocock is going to be moving. That amendment would phase out the plug-in hybrid electric vehicles being eligible for this discount after three years. We think that after three years it would be very appropriate to do that review, to make sure that this measure is being effective.