Alex Greenwich doesn’t like cars but his garage is loaded with them and they need a bit of boost

Alex Greenwich’s disquiet with cars apparently doesn’t extend to his husband’s collection, which has been drawing a trickle charge to keep batteries topped up.

Climate crusaders often boast about not owning a vehicle. If they do own a vehicle, then it’s usually just one vehicle. Maybe two vehicles, tops. And these are usually sensible vehicles, such as a Prius or an EV, unlike the veritable fleet of fuel guzzlers owned by renowned Sydney MP Alex Greenwich.

We were surprised to learn this week, on the quiet, of just how many vintage beasts he’s got sitting in his garage.

Five motor vehicles in total, apparently. None of them EVs, none of them hybrids.

They’re all registered in the name of his husband, Victor Hoeld, which means technically they’re not Greenwich’s at all. But let’s not be fooled.

And that’s the strangest bit, too, because Greenwich has devoted so much energy to trash-talking car engines and the unmitigated destruction they wreak upon the environment.

He posted a whole speech about this very issue to his website. It said: “Motor vehicle emissions cause over half the world’s air pollution and are responsible for most inner city pollution.”

Then it said: “Motor vehicles also contribute to climate change, which erodes air quality because hotter days increase air pollutants through atmospheric changes and more bushfires.”

So cars, in Greenwich’s view, are bad. He lives in Sydney’s inner city, so he’s speaking from lived experience when he talks about air quality in his neighbourhood, and presumably that’s why he so avowedly called for people to ride bikes instead of cars in yet another speech. Because cars are bad.

Neighbours of Sydney MP Alex Greenwich are smarting over the use of electricity in the building. Picture: NewsWire / Nikki Short

“Bicycle traffic does not create the noise and emissions that motor vehicles do,” he said. “A street full of bicycles is preferable to a street full of motor vehicles.”

Except Greenwich practically owns a street of motor vehicles, so none of this makes sense, and the cars have caused a right barney between him and the residents in his apartment building, because they (the cars) need to be “trickle-charged” to keep the batteries from running flat.

The allegation is that Greenwich has been stealing electricity from the building to get this done, using extension cables and power sources located on the common property. He didn’t deny the charge.

Residents are smarting about it, too, hoo boy. They’re annoyed about the theft (a nominal amount, but hardly the point). They’re annoyed about the cabling. They’re annoyed that it’s a politician who’s getting away with it. And they’re annoyed enough that this year a vandal crept into the carpark and severed the cabling to the Greenwich household’s trickle-charging unit, resulting in a full-blown police investigation and some forensic analysis of the garage, as though a murder had taken place.

“We have had an incident in the car parks earlier this week when the electrical cords ‘trickle-charging’ some car batteries have been slashed,“ the building said in an email to residents. “This is clearly an act of vandalism. The police have attended and followed up with a forensic team.”

Greenwich won a defamation action against Mark Latham in the Federal Court a year ago and has spoken of repeated threats to his safety since.

He suspected the cable-slashing incident to be a hate crime, rather than a downsizing-boomer who’d had enough; but he wouldn’t talk about any of that with us.

“Given the serious and ongoing threats to Mr Greenwich’s safety, and on police advice, he will not be providing any comment on any matter relating to his home address or vehicle use,” a spokeswoman said.

The investigations are actually ongoing, apparently.

If there’s a denouement to this mystery then it came three weeks ago, when the building finally ordered residents to submit a formal application if they need to trickle-charge their vehicle.

“Successful applicants will be limited to 10 hours in one overnight charge per week,” the committee said.

“If two residents wish to use the same power point at the same time the decision of the Building Manager will be final.”

Not the worst result for Greenwich. He’s an independent, so he’s built a career on power sharing.