Zoe Daniel: Vertically integrate EV manufacturing capacity

Australia now has the launch pad to fulfil its potential to be a clean, green superpower, and a global hub for new tech and industries to power our prosperity.

Zoe Daniel is the community independent member for Goldstein

Laggards no more. It’s time to lead. That was the demand delivered by the voters of Goldstein and across much of the country on May 21.

The passage of the Climate Change Bill through the House of Representatives, entrenching a minimum cut of 43 per cent in our carbon emissions by 2030 in law, strengthened with amendments from me and other community independents, is not enough. But it is an encouraging first step.

The sense of hope is palpable among the many members of the Goldstein community who I have spoken with since. So now it’s time to set about doing what’s needed to exceed that mark.

Australia now has the launch pad to fulfil its potential to be a clean, green superpower, and a global hub for new tech and industries to power our prosperity.

Charge into the future

Phase one is electric vehicles. The Covid pandemic and global shocks to energy and food supplies delivered by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine are an overdue reminder that globalisation has its limits and dangers.

We need sovereign capability; some industries and services cannot be entirely outsourced to China or other nations with cheaper labour and capital, and nor should they be, when in some cases we are not only exporting the work and the resources, but also the profits.

We are in a rolling energy crisis caused by the failure of policy makers to ensure enough gas was reserved in the eastern states for domestic consumers – businesses as well as households.

Those policy makers also failed to properly recognise the value of the gas itself, with super profits now being raked in by (largely) multinational companies while Australians struggle with skyrocketing bills.

Australia is a laggard, and yet it is in a unique position globally to develop vertically integrated EV manufacturing capacity.

We have the skills, and we have the raw materials, most importantly precious supplies of nickel, manganese, and lithium.

Why would we send them all offshore when we could process them here, make the batteries and even the vehicles ourselves?

Tesla, for example, is keen to ­diversify its production and expand manufacturing to the Asia-Pacific, and Australia is an attractive option, but only if ­government gets wholeheartedly behind EVs.

These are lessons we must learn if we are to accelerate and take advantage of the uptake of electric vehicles. In Australia, after a decade of a government that sneered at EVs falsely claiming they would “end the weekend”, just 2 per cent of new vehicles are electric.

Uptake of EVs is far faster in Europe

In the EU and the UK, the figure is well over 10 per cent – and globally, it is 6 per cent.

We must update fuel and vehicle emissions standards. Our fuel is so dirty that carmakers cannot send us their most efficient vehicles. According to the Climate Change Authority, motorists are paying at least 30 per cent more for petrol than if we had acted when comparable countries did, and Australia is becoming a dumping group for petrol-powered cars.

Charging infrastructure is a problem. “Plugshare” lists fewer than a dozen chargers in my community of Goldstein.

Surveys by Live Tiles indicate that it is lower and middle income wage earners who are keenest to enjoy the economic benefits of EVs, but as they tend to buy second-hand vehicles the emissions standards mean they can only access “dirty” vehicles with higher fuel costs. And why is it not mandatory for real estate notices to indicate whether properties for rent are EV friendly?

We’ve been left in the dust for too long. It’s time to put our foot down and get on with it.

Zoe Daniel is the independent member for Goldstein