PM wants 1.7 million clean cars on Australia’s roads in ten years
The government wants 1.7 million clean cars on Australia’s roads in the next decade but has made a vow to families.
National
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Aiming to get 1.7 million clean cars on Australia’s roads in the next decade, the federal government will build charging infrastructure across the country and drive down costs under a $250 million fund.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Energy Minister Angus Taylor will on Tuesday unveil the government’s new Future Fuels and Vehicles Strategy to help Australia slash transport emissions and reach net zero emissions by 2050.
“Australians love their family sedan, farmers rely on their trusted ute and our economy counts on trucks and trains to deliver goods from coast to coast,” Mr Morrison said.
“We will not be forcing Australians out of a the car they want to drive, or penalising those who can least afford it through bans or taxes.
“The strategy will work to drive down the cost of low and zero emission vehicles.”
With a $178m top up to the existing fund, the government hopes to attract co-investment from the private sector to develop new technologies.
A priority area is the cost of batteries, which are the main contributor to electric battery vehicles being expensive.
“Integral to electric vehicles reaching price parity with conventional vehicles is a reduction in the cost of manufacturing lithium-ion batteries, as a result of industry innovation,” the report states.
Mr Taylor said he expected Australians would “rapidly adopt” electric cars when they reached price parity with regular vehicles, similar to the country’s “world-leading” rooftop solar uptake.
“Voluntary adoption of electric vehicles is the right pathway for reducing transport emissions over the long term,” he said.
By 2030, battery electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles will make up to 30 per cent of new passenger and light commercial vehicle sales.
PM hits the trail to sell net-zero to miners
With a blitz of regional NSW featuring hard hats, factory tours and group selfies, Prime Minister Scott Morrison is stepping up his unofficial campaign as the next election looms.
On his first domestic trip since returning from the climate summit in Glasgow, Mr Morrison spent Monday touring the Hunter and Newcastle to reassure coal mining communities his government’s net-zero plan would mean more jobs for the region.
Promoting the region’s potential as a hydrogen hub, Mr Morrison dismissed mounting pressure to reveal the modelling behind his net-zero emissions by 2050 policy and the details of the deal struck with the Nationals to secure their support.
A cryptic assurance the modelling would be published “soon” was the only answer offered up.
Though Mr Morrison would not give a time frame for releasing the data, it is understood the government is preparing to make the information public as soon as this week.
Asked what had been offered to the Nationals during net-zero negotiations, Mr Morrison said the government was “already outlining our policies,” with the remainder to be announced “between now and the next election”.
“(The policies) will show the big investments that we’re making in the regions to back in these investments we’re making, particularly in new technologies like the hydrogen hubs all around the country,” he said.
“The investments we’re making in the regions are about them making those regions stronger.”
Flanked by the Liberal Party’s newly preselected candidates for Shortland and Paterson – lawyers Nell McGill and Brooke Vitnell – Mr Morrison visited local electrical engineering company Ampcontrol.
After viewing the battery electric vehicle for underground mines, a world-first hydrogen energy storage system, stand-alone power system for remote and regional communities, and posing for a group selfie with workers, the group visited the Port of Newcastle.
Mr Morrison is expected to spend the rest of the week in Victoria, making the most of the recently reopened border with NSW.
Though the election can be called at any time between now and early May, government sources have increasingly indicated Mr Morrison will not go early.
Even so, as the summer holidays loom and with-it a well-earned break from politicians in the minds of most Australians, the window of time left for campaigning is slim.
Tacticians from both major parties concede the path to victory is narrow, with several NSW seats – including Hunter, Gilmore, Macquarie and Lindsay – seen as critical battlegrounds.
Mr Morrison’s visit to Paterson and Shortland was likely the first of many to the region in the coming months.
Labor’s Shortland MP Pat Conroy on Monday described the PM’s visit as a “pretty hollow gesture” if he wasn’t prepared to “reverse his course on climate change” to improve market conditions for the development of hydrogen and other technology in the region.
“We are in direct competition with countries … because they know it’s the way of the future,” Mr Conroy said.
“So it’s got huge potential not just producing hydrogen, but combining it with iron ore from the west of Australia and making a new steel industry. A new steel industry that could be centred in Newcastle.”
Highlighting the region’s potential, the federal and state governments will on Tuesday announce a combined $38m in funding to halve the emissions of one of the biggest industrial sites in NSW, Kooragang Island.
The state will provide a $13m grant to the owner of the Newcastle site, Orica, to install an emissions reduction system that NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean said was expected to reduce emissions from its three nitric acid plants by up to 92 per cent.
“This … will help NSW meet its target of halving emissions by 2030,” Mr Kean said.
With $25m from the Clean Energy and Finance Corporation, it was one of the largest abatement projects ever funded, Energy and Emissions Reductions Minister Angus Taylor said.
“The government is committed to supporting hard-to-abate industries, like manufacturing and mining,” he said.
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