The country’s most ambitious electric vehicle policy to date has fallen apart after NSW Labor won government from the Coalition, but the shift could mark an era in which efforts to manufacture low-emission technology on home soil replace splashy incentives.
Electric Vehicle Council CEO Behyad Jafari said the former Perrottet government had spent two years as the country’s top-rated state for EV policy, and he applauded its “incredible job in addressing the significant opportunity that electric vehicles represented to the state”.
“They did this not only by delivering the strongest state policy through their NSW Electric Vehicle Strategy, but also in their ongoing efforts and commitment to realising the state’s target of 50% EV sales by 2030,” Jafari told Crikey.
Climate expert and former climate and energy program director at the Australia Institute Richie Merzian said the NSW Liberal Party had a better EV policy than the Andrews Labor government in Victoria, let alone the newly minted Minns government.
“I do think the NSW Liberals’ [former treasurer and energy minister] Matt Kean has gone out of his way to build a broad church coalition to create renewable energy zones, push ahead with targets, and create a much better electric vehicle policy than NSW Labor,” Merzian, a former government representative to the UN climate change conference, told Crikey.
Charging up NSW two ways
Earlier this month on the campaign trail, Coogee Labor MP Marjorie O’Neill and then-Labor candidate for Vaucluse Margaret Merten (who lost to Liberal Kellie Sloane) announced Labor would pour $700,000 into funding 19 electric vehicle charging sites in Sydney’s affluent east (Waverley, Randwick and Woollahra).
“We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint, and this is one way we can do that,” O’Neill said.
It followed Labor’s pledge of a $10 million fund for electric vehicle charging outlets throughout the state, which would create at least 50 charging stations in NSW. With somewhere between four and 15 chargers at each site, it could mean as many as 750 extra chargers for desperate EV drivers.
But it’s peanuts compared to the Coalition’s EV charging ambitions, following a pre-election vow to boost the number of chargers some 30-fold — from 1000 to 30,000 by 2026 — more than double the number of petrol pumps in NSW.
The Perrottet government also dished out an additional $38 million for electric vehicle chargers in its 2022-23 budget — including $10 million to co-fund kerbside charging points, $10 million to co-fund 125 medium and large apartment buildings, and $18 million for more EV fast-charging grants (which will see charging points at stations increase from four to eight).
“We want all drivers to be able to recharge whenever and wherever they need to, whether it’s on a road trip, commuting to work or at home,” Kean said last month.
Other spiked incentives from Kean, who was admittedly somewhat of a climate outlier in the party, included no stamp duty on electric vehicles priced below $78,000, $3000 rebates for those less than $68,750, and permission for EVs to drive in the transit lanes.
It was all part of the Perrottet government’s splashy EV strategy — of which Kean was the architect — which earmarked $633 million to see electric vehicles make up half of all new car sales in 2030-31 on the way to net zero by mid-century.
Labor goes to the source
But Minns headed further up the supply chain in his approach to the state’s EVs on the campaign trail, outlining his vision for NSW to take the reins of our EV manufacturing — which is nearly entirely imported.
Australia is currently home to half of the world’s lithium and exports $9.4 billion of the critical mineral for lithium-ion batteries, while China controls 59% of the world’s EV battery production.
“We need a plan to make NSW an EV technology leader, not just an importer of parts and an exporter of raw materials,” Minns said.
“We need to think big and carve out a role for NSW manufacturing in the EV supply chain.”
Earlier this month, Minns also vowed to electrify public transport on home soil by building a fleet of zero-emission buses in NSW, creating a “rapid bus network” to make zero-emissions public transport the “future” in his state.
It was bad optics, however, when Minns’ electric bus broke down days later on the campaign trail, ostensibly because Minns himself had forgotten to charge the branded vehicle overnight. It was promptly abandoned in Sydney’s west in favour of a diesel bus.
“But bus or no bus, we are ready for the next four days,” Minns said — and the now-premier was.
Reasons to be hopeful
Jafari said there’s no reason to believe the new Labor government won’t rise to the occasion and develop a far more ambitious EV incentive policy and fashion the state as an independent, low-emission technology manufacturer.
The EV Council boss said “ministers across the government continued to look at levers to pull to smooth an accelerated transition to EVs”, adding he’d personally found “the new government in opposition has always been positive in their approach to EVs”.
“The previous government had the time to prove they were a 10/10 when it came to electric vehicles,” Jafari said.
“The Labor government has that same potential and we hope with time they prove to be just as strong.”
Will Labor rise to meet the former NSW government’s EV ambitions? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
