Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to all coalition questions without notice asked today.

Today, we heard about a deferral and an avoiding of the reality when it comes to fuel efficiency standards and EV, and a ute tax and SUV tax that is going to be placed upon Australian households. There's a real detachment from reality when it comes to this debate.

We all can accept that things are changing in innovation and opportunity for vehicles, but the time frames that this government is putting in place are going to have a dramatic impact on households and on various industries. Senator Watt, in response to a question that he received, talked about the manufacturing industry. Well, I want to talk about a part of the manufacturing sector here in Australia that is going to be severely impacted by this change that the government is bringing into place and the haste with which it is doing it, and that is the caravan-manufacturing industry.

Did you know that over 90 per cent of the caravans that we all see driving on the roads—and sometimes holding up the traffic in the school holidays, heading up north or wherever they might be going—are manufactured here in Australia? In fact, 92 per cent are manufactured in Victoria alone, in the suburbs of Campbellfield and Epping. The policy that the government has is going to have a dramatic impact on that industry. It is shocking. That industry is worth, to rural Australia, over $11 billion in visitors who visit regional Australia with their caravans. When you hook up your caravan, you don't just go down the road to stay in your capital city. People from the country might do that when they come to visit family or others, but most of the people live in the capital cities, and they spend their holidays out in the regions. They hook up their van and they drive a distance to go to that holiday spot.

But we know that an EV is not able to deal with those distances. Why is this? Because the gravimetric energy density of a battery—the best generation of lithium ion batteries—is 250 watt-hours per kilogram, whereas the gravimetric energy density of fuel is 11,700 watt-hours per kilogram. That means that a large vehicle like the F-150 Lightning, a big American truck, is failing in its sales overseas, because people realise that it's actually not that practical if you've got to carry something heavy. They're not selling those vehicles, and Ford are having to scale back their delivery of those vehicles. The battery in that vehicle alone weighs 900 kilos. That is equivalent to 18 litres of fuel. With 18 litres of fuel, you can get about 100 kilometres when you're towing something. That's the reality of the real-world tests that have been conducted, particularly in America, where these vehicles are currently available. You can only tow for 100 kilometres. If you're going from Perth to Busselton, it's normally only about a two-hour drive, but you would need to pull over twice over that distance and wait for three hours for your vehicle to recharge. And that is if the facility has a fast charger. You'd have to wait, because it's a 120 kilowatt-hour battery in that EV. It is simply not practical.

I'm not against EVs. My wife has one. It's fantastic. She drives around town. It's a small vehicle—perfect. But anyone who needs to tow something or who needs to put some heavy weight in the back, because that's their job, is going to find that these vehicles are impractical. The problem with this policy that the government is introducing is that it's putting a tax on people's lifestyles and a tax on people's jobs. That is the worst thing that you could do for productivity—putting a tax. The reason why a tradie will carry, for example, a heavy jackhammer, is that they've got to get through some heavy concrete. You're talking about the laws of physics here. You cannot defy them with mystical policies that you might bring in. You've got to deal with practicalities when it comes to this policy, and you are not doing that. It's all about the pace that you're going about it, because there is nothing—I defy anyone who wants to disagree with me: point to anything, even on the far periphery of any innovation—when it comes to battery technology or the storage of electricity in a vehicle, that will demonstrate that it will go anywhere near the time frames that your policy is going to implement.