Electric Vehicle Council CEO Behyad Jafari has described suggestions by Energy Minister Angus Taylor that Labor’s EV policy would precipitate a ‘housing tax’ as “truly ludicrous.”
The fresh scare campaign was reported in the Daily Telegraph this morning and focuses on Labor’s commitment to “work with states to ensure new and refurbished commercial and residential developments include EV charging capacity.”
Mr Jafari said the dishonest suggestion should be dropped.
“Mr Taylor has cooked up with some truly ridiculous and dishonest scare tactics during the course of this campaign. They are tactics that should, frankly, be beneath the Energy Minister of Australia,” Mr Jafari said.
“This ‘housing tax’ line is a contender for the silliest scare tactic yet, perhaps even sillier than the Prime Minister predicting “the end of the weekend.”
“Making sure new buildings are future-proofed and able to charge vehicles efficiently is common sense given that everyone – including the Liberal Party – acknowledges that a mass transition to EVs is coming. The costs are minimal at build.
“By contrast doing nothing would be the costly option, because it would ensure that people would be forced to pay more later to upgrade retrospectively.”
Mr Jafari noted that the Liberal NSW Government had a plan, similar to Labor’s, that calls for the investigation of:
– Measures to make buildings ‘EV ready’ ensuring that new buildings cater for EV charging
– The use of National Construction Code and Wiring Rules – to provide guidance on options to retrofit charging points in existing buildings
– Further streamline approval processes for installing charging points to make the installation of charging points quicker and cheaper
“All around the world – from the US to the UK – policy like this is uncontroversial. Governments – progressive and conservative – are simply getting on with the obvious transition to electric vehicles,” Mr Jafari said.
“It’s only in Australia that we see a party of government actively trying to run a scare campaign on the inevitable future.
“It’s a real shame and I encourage Mr Taylor to start acting more like the Energy Minister of a modern, developed economy.”
