Thursday, 5 October 2023

Electric vehicle tax

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (18:10): (487) My adjournment this evening is to the Treasurer. We know it was a busy week last week, and it has actually been a busy week this week as well, but I certainly had time to read the Ombudsman’s report into the effects of the electric vehicle tax that the Treasurer introduced 2½ years ago through the Zero and Low Emission Vehicle Distance-based Charge Bill 2021. The Ombudsman investigated implementation of the EV tax, finding that:

… thousands of people have been affected by the charge since it came into effect in 2021, many of them unfairly.

She also wrote that:

… while this report focuses on the actions of the Department of Transport and Planning, there are broader lessons for the public sector about the dangers of making policy on the run (or not making it at all) …

The report shows in excruciating detail that the rollout of the unfair EV tax has been a mess. Victorians have been getting unfairly penalised and even double-charged while coming up against a heavy-handed and unhelpful department. Let me share some direct evidence from the report:

Imagine buying an electric vehicle, and then being charged for more kilometres than you have driven, because ‘this average calculation is bound by legislation’.

…

… As the Robodebt inquiry showed us, there are dangers in making assumptions and using average calculations to charge people. Assumptions have been made about how people will use their electric vehicles, which plainly disadvantage people with older vehicles or those who have less access to charging stations.

Another quote:

Imagine …

… travelling thousands of kilometres on fuel in your plug-in hybrid vehicle in remote parts of Australia with no charging stations and being charged hundreds of dollars for road use, despite having already paid the Commonwealth fuel excise on all those kilometres.

Transport is Victoria’s second-highest source of emissions, and growing, and they currently do continue go up, not down. To meet its own net zero targets, it is time this government starts to take emissions from transport seriously and develop a proper whole-of-government transition plan. This should include policies that would actually encourage EV uptake and drive down greenhouse gas emissions as well as rethinking our tax revenue. Transitioning to a carbon-neutral future demands sophisticated and integrated thinking as well as calling for this cack-handed, unfair tax to be scrapped. My adjournment is to ask the Treasurer to engage in long-term tax discussions with his Commonwealth and state colleagues. Revenue from fuel excise will only continue to decline, so substantive rethinking about our tax base at state and federal levels is needed, and we suggest that in those conversations revisiting the regressive stage 3 tax cuts would be a good place to start.