New Zealand Listener – August 03, 2019

(Ann) #1
LISTENER AUGUST 3 2019

It’s not even fair to say that National is opposed to
boosting people’s uptake of electric vehicles (EVs).
This makes the current National-Greens head-
butting over the new EV feebate scheme almost
ostentatiously pointless. Both are protecting their
brand, but at the expense of the truth.
After both parties swarmed social media like
demented wasps alighting on one another’s every
claim with maximum umbrage, the Greens devised
a video that overdubbed Bridges, making him seem
like a Neanderthal petrolhead: “Oi loik cars!”
When even the Greens’ supporters thought this
a bit on the nose, they took it offline – although
co-leader James Shaw compounded the offence by
saying they had hired an actor only to imitate, not
parody, Bridges’ distinctive accent. Teeny

hint: when you hire comedian Tom
Sainsbury, whose specialty is political
spoof, that’s what you tend to get.
National has been shamelessly
winding up farmers and tradies with a
“They’re coming after your vans and
utes!” online scare campaign. At first,
Green Associate Transport Minister
Julie Anne Genter tried to rebut them
post-by-post. Doubtless the futility
of this prompted the – admittedly,
funny – Green video.

National is right, the policy is
designed to herd people away from
high-emission vehicles, of which vans
and utes tend to be the apex offend-
ers. This will cause problems, because
few EVs can do the same work, such
as carting heavy kit and towing fallen
trees. These vehicles and many other
petrol-driven cars will get com-
paratively more expensive, and their
resale value will sink. The Govern-
ment can’t honestly say that that’s
not what will happen or that it’s not
what it wants to happen.
But nor can National get away
with creating the impression that this
doesn’t have to happen or that there
can ever be a successful policy to
boost EVs without some cost to some

drivers of petrol-powered vehicles.
Most voters now understand that
climate-change mitigation is a major,
expensive and inconvenient bummer
and that the cost burdens might
not fall evenly. But it’s a bit soon to
get hot and bothered about our EV
switch, because, for the foreseeable
future, EVs will be scarce and beyond
most people’s pockets, even with the
feebate. We don’t yet have enough
fast-charge facilities to support a
mass-switch, anyway, and EVs’ lack
of range and power means they’ll
remain unsuitable for many folk
until the technology advances. Even
without the feebate, the car market
is pricing in the inevitable redun-
dancy of petrol cars. And don’t let’s
get started on the Byzantine options
under consideration for restructuring
our electricity sector in readiness for
all this clean technology.

SUPERFICIALLY SMART POLITICS
Still, National’s catastrophising is
superficially smart politics. As well as
the impost on high-emission cars, a
road-safety blitz is pending in which
the prime weapon seems to be lower-
ing the legal speed. There’s a Mr Toad
in many of us – “Vroom-vroom, poop-
poop! Get out of my way!” – whom
National can easily rark up.
But prioritising that message risks
damaging National’s credibility
on the climate-change front – and
with it Bridges’ support in caucus.
He’s already made it obvious he’s
touchy about this, by omitting to
promote National’s climate change
spokesperson, Todd Muller, in his
reshuffle. This is partly because, in

F

ew MPs are keener on electric cars


than Simon Bridges. There are


accounts of the Opposition leader


going into a “vroom-vroom” fugue


state over the battery-powered


wonders, similar to that of Mr Toad in The


Wind in the Willows when he sees his first


motor car.


POLITICS


Successfully selling the electric-vehicle switch won’t be easy.


Fuel for the fire


JANE


CLIFTON


National’s Simon Bridges: “Oi loik cars!”

Even without the
feebate, the car
market is pricing

in the inevitable
redundancy of

petrol cars.

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