Gillard puts skids under Australia’s green car fleet
9th August, 2011
“FEDERAL Government policies could signal the end of the road for Australian motoring's green revolution,” Acting Opposition Leader and Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Warren Truss lamented today as he visited GM Holden’s testing labs in Port Melbourne.Holden invests $200 million each year in research, including its own direct action plan to make modern motoring greener, cutting emissions by 14% since the launch of the VE Commodore in 2006, which can run on E85 alternative fuel (85% ethanol).
But short-sighted policies have put those efforts on the skids. An ever-growing carbon tax, axing the $1.3 billion Green Car Innovation Fund and slapping a new 12.5 cents (plus GST) per litre tax on LPG for motorists is Labor’s policy trifecta for killing off innovation.
“A $23 per tonne carbon tax will cost car manufacturers in Australia $30 million,” Mr Truss said. “Of course, that’s just for starters, the carbon price ramps up each year to increasingly put the brakes on car manufacturing in this country.
“Imported cars will not come with the added baggage of the carbon tax built into their price tag. This will have the bizarre affect of curbing demand for Australian-made greener cars while making cheaper imports, with their higher CO2 emissions from shipping to Australia, more attractive.
“The absurd counter-productive policy mess doesn’t stop there. Labor has abolished its own Green Car Innovation Fund, which saw car companies kick in $3 for every $1 from taxpayers to drive local development and production of greener more fuel efficient cars.
“With $800 million left in the Fund, Labor reneged on its commitment and pulled out of the industry partnership in February this year. Adding insult to injury, the government didn’t bother to notify the car makers – the first they heard of it was via media reports.
“Exposing Labor’s ingrained deceit, this decision came after the Federal Government insisted in 2008, that the car companies lay out their detailed business plans to the government to get the scheme up.
“Completing the triple policy threat, Labor’s decision to whack a tax on LPG is not only killing off consumer uptake of this cleaner, environmentally-friendly fuel, but has left car makers out of pocket, too.
“Car makers were led up the garden path by Labor’s AA2020 Vision, which declared the government’s unwavering commitment to alternative fuels. Armed with this, Holden and others, in good faith, began development of dedicated LPG vehicles.
“With the Gillard government blithely walking away from that commitment, car makers are understandably nervous about the viability of investing in alternative fuel vehicles.
“Instead of consistent, coherent market signals, the government has chopped and changed so often businesses don’t know whether they are Arthur or Martha. That’s no way to do business or run a country.”
[ENDS]
