Narrow-thinking campaigns calling for electric vehicle mandates risk leaving regional communities behind, NSW Farmers has warned.
The Committee for Sydney wants to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2027, while the Grattan Institute says old diesel-powered trucks should be taken off Sydney’s roads, both in a push to improve the environment.
However, NSW Farmers Energy Transition Working Group chair Reg Kidd says these policies would have disastrous unintended consequences for regional communities and the agricultural sector.
“No matter how well-intentioned these ideas may be, the fact is that they just aren’t workable for people in the country,” Mr Kidd said.
“With few public transport options and vast distances between towns, country people have little choice but to use petrol or diesel to get around and I can’t see that changing in the next five years.
“There are many people in regional communities who want to be part of the energy transition, but they need to be able to be involved, not sidelined as a consequence of a narrow thinking.”
Many smaller family farms and regional businesses use older vehicles out of necessity – not choice – meaning a ban on them entering Sydney could impact food supplies. And while the number of electric vehicle charging stations in country areas was increasing, Mr Kidd said they were not yet a replacement in terms of practicality of distance and convenience.
“The reality is that setting artificial targets for spot solutions could do enormous harm to the supply chain of food, most of which will rely on diesel for the foreseeable future,” Mr Kidd said.
“Capital investment is a constant challenge and setting punitive targets may be okay for the big transport operators, but for farmers and small fleet operators it could spell doom.
“We need the electric vehicle market to be viable and affordable – and desirable – before calls to take trucks off the road, and food off the table of cities, is even contemplated.”
Mr Kidd said the agricultural sector was engaging with local, state, and federal governments around the energy transition, and called for a well-articulated transition strategy including retrofitting existing vehicles to keep them on the road.
“There are few things more wasteful than consigning a good truck to the scrap heap simply because of a number,” Mr Kidd said.
“If we’re serious about doing more with less and minimising our impact, we should be recycling and repurposing wherever possible, and trucks are part of that too.
“Perhaps we need to see incentives for renewal of vehicles and strategies for bio-fuel if we want to drive a transition that is practical and achievable.”
