Tuesday, 28 May 2024

Electric vehicles

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (13:33): The New South Wales government announced yesterday the largest rollout of public kerbside electric vehicle chargers in Australia, co-funding 671 chargers at 391 sites. These chargers will be located at kerbsides and in council car parks and are designed to support people who are renting, people who live in apartments and other households that do not have an off-street parking space to charge their electric vehicle at home.

Transport is Victoria’s second-largest source of carbon emissions, and emissions are rising. A speedy, planned and orderly shift from petrol and diesel to electric vehicles will be an important part of reducing those transport emissions. Making sure people have ready access to cheap charging infrastructure, giving them the confidence that they will be able to top up their battery conveniently, will be crucial to encouraging and enabling Victorians to make the shift to EVs. They not only reduce emissions but are also cheaper per kilometre to run.

This is particularly important since the Victorian Labor government last year scrapped purchase subsidies for electric vehicles, a year earlier than originally planned and before the allocated funding was even spent. The Victorian Labor government should follow their New South Wales counterpart’s lead and invest in a similar, forward-thinking fund for more kerbside charging stations, to give people more options to charge electric vehicles close to their homes.