A TAX ON ELECTRIC VEHICLES - HAVE THE VICTORIAN AND SOUTH AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENTS TAKEN LEAVE OF THE SENSES - IF THEY EVER HAD ANY TO START WITH?

>Treasurer's proposal is unfair on several levels

23 November 2020

ELECTRIC VEHICLE TAX

Treasurer’s proposal is unfair on several levels

ll road users should pay for the roads they use and it is appropriate for electric vehicle (EV) owners to pay their fair share. However, the proposed EV road tax is unfair on several levels (‘‘Pallas zaps electric cars with road charges’’, 22/11).

It fails to account for the benefits of EVs to society, such as reduced health costs attributable to pollution-related illness and costs of mitigation of the effects of climate change. It beggars belief that a state that has just endured a climate emergency-related catastrophe would decide to introduce legislation that would increase the risk. It ignores the fact that the fossil-fuel energy is already subsided to the tune of $1480 for every Australian per year.

It will mean that Victoria will be one of the few places in the world with not only minimal EV incentives but actual disincentives. Without adequate incentives to buy EVs and without stringent fuel efficiency standards, Australia has become a dumping ground for car manufacturers’ least fuel efficient, most polluting models. An EV road tax will only exacerbate this problem.

It would be far better to develop a more equitable system that ensures that all road users pay their fair share, not only of the cost of building and maintaining roads, but of the cost to society based on their choice of vehicle. Michael Fink, Donvale

A mind-boggling decision

For a government with ambition to tackle pollution and climate change, Tim Pallas’ decision to follow South Australia’s questionable lead and tax electric cars is mind boggling.

Why would you tax the one form of transport technology that can produce zero emissions? The ACT has said it will offer zero interest loans, stamp duty exemptions and two years of free registration for EV buyers, yet in Victoria we plan to place a new tax on not polluting?

Nowhere else in the world (not even Donald Trump’s America) are EVs the subject of a special tax. Our failure to encourage the uptake of EVs means we will be the dumping ground for old polluting cars while manufacturers send their new and cheaper EVs to more welcoming shores. Mr Pallas needs to reconsider this damaging proposal before budget night.

Guy Abrahams, Richmond

We need leaders, not dinosaurs

So Tim Pallas thinks drivers that are not filling up their vehicles with petrol are not paying their way . This would have to go down as one of the most short-sighted political statements in recent memory, perhaps to be quoted in the future as one of the prime examples of misguided policy as climate change stares us in the face.

Drivers of petrol cars (me included) are not paying our share of the costs associated with the emissions they produce. I guess for a short time earlier this decade we were, but Tony Abbott saw that idea off. Sure, electric vehicles can indirectly produce emissions because of the generation source, but because of the high efficiency of electric motors, even a car run on coal-fired power is less polluting than a petrol one. A properly constructed price on carbon-based fuels would account for this.

Australia is set to become the dumping ground for vehicles that car manufacturers cannot sell in advanced markets. Take a look at Volkswagen’s websites for European countries for example – the new electric range is promoted front and centre. Boris Johnson (Conservative, UK) would think the Victorian government is “bonkers”.

We need leaders, not dinosaurs.

Alex Judd, Blackburn North

Compromising a good record

The Andrews government’s move to slap a new tax on electric vehicles is bizarre. While claiming to be a leader on climate action and clean energy, the Victorian Treasurer seems intent on creating barriers to clean technology uptake.

While European countries embrace government incentives for electric vehicles, the Andrews government’s good record on clean energy and climate action is now looking severely compromised.

Nick Roberts, Shepparton

UNIT 1 AT 12 MURPHY GROVE, PRESTON, VIC 3072, OWNED BY VICTORIAN STATE GOVERNMENT

We  discovered that Unit 1 at 12 Murphy Grove, Preston, Vic 3072, belonged to the Department of Health and Human Services of the Victorian State government some time after we had bought unit 2 and moved into it in February 2001.

Unit 1 is what is called transitional housing which we are given to understand is so that the tenants who are placed there are in some sort of emergency situation and are to be in this transitional housing unit for a limited period of time, until more suitable accommodation can be found for them.

The property is supposed to be managed by an organisation called Loddon Mallee Housing Services, trading as Haven; Home, Safe whose address is 52-56 Mary Street, Preston, Vic 3072, phone number 03 9479 0731.

At the moment, 19 September 2017, the Tenancy and Property Manager is Susan Hallorina. (email: susan.hallorina@hhs.org.au and web address http://www.havenhomesafe.org.au)

The two units are what I believe are called villa units and unit 1 is the front one and faces onto the street, Murphy Grove.

This has had, as far as we can make out, 13 different tenants or groups of tenants, with differing numbers of people each time, some being adults only, some being women with children who have been in situations of domestic violence, some have been migrants and some whose circumstances we have not been able to find any details about.

The tenants who have lived there have been good, bad, and impossible, and the reason that I am writing this blog is that the current tenants fall into the impossible category.

I notice that in the web pages of Haven; Home, Safe, there is no mention of how this organisation explores the needs of the neighbours of the housing they manage, so that people like us seem to have no recourse to the people who are thrust upon us and we have no support.

My only recourse is to publicly expose the ugly side of what is happening to us at the moment and hope that some organisation acts on this mess and helps to calm our situation down somewhat.

Don't hold your breath!

Attached hereto are some illustrative photos with more to come when possible.

It should also be noted that the people in unit 1 seem to be in possession of 3 cars.

Notices at the entrance to 12 Murphy Grove and outside unit 2 about No Parking in the driveway seem to have been not noticed by the tenants of unit 1 until at least two complaints were made to the organisation supposedly looking after unit 1. There is still the occasional vehicle parked in the driveway.

Darebin Council do not seem to have been in any hurry to get the residents of unit 1 to remove this junk from the pavement outside 12 Murphy Grove.

FEED-IN-TARIFF - BETRAYAL BY A SO-CALLED LABOR GOVERNMENT

As long as governments in Australia continue to support the coal industry, so much longer will it take to wean everybody off coal-fired generating plants and on to environment friendly renewable energy producers, such as wind energy, solar energy and other alternative energy generating systems.

The smoking lobby has been very successful for the last 100 years and more in trying to prevent governments advising populations of the deleterious health hazards of smoking.

The coal lobby has either learnt from the smoking lobby or vice versa and between them they have continued endangering lives and the health of large population groups.

The latest disaster on the renewable energy front is the secret and secretive decrease of the feed-in-tariff available to those who have alternative energy systems such as people with solar panels on their roof tops. The tariff, low as it was at 6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, has been reduced to 5 cents and we can only assume that the coal lobby has got at the Victorian State Labor government to induce them to make this reduction.

When solar panels were first introduced into Victoria about 10 to 15 years ago, feed-in-tariffs apparently ranged to up to 60 cents - now in 2016 dropping to 5 cents.

FROM RENEWENERGY:

Victoria solar feed-in tariff to be slashed to 5c/kWh in 2016

By Sophie Vorrath on 25 August 2015

One Step Off The Grid

Less than a week after the Victorian Andrews government promised to fight network discrimination against rooftop solar households, the state’s Essential Services Commission has confirmed it will slash the feed-in tariff for solar power exported to the grid to 5c/kWh.

The ESC said in a statement on Monday that it has decided to set the minimum rate for purchases of small renewable energy generation electricity at 5 cents per kilowatt hour, starting January 2016.




It said that it had come to this price by weighing up the marginal cost of the equivalent amount of electricity that would otherwise need to be purchased from central generators, as well as “the locational value of electricity produced close to the final consumers compared to relatively distant central generators.”

The ESC said the energy value of PV electricity had been calculated as a weighted average of the forecast spot market prices for Victoria for each half-hour period of 2016, as prepared by ACIL Allen Consulting.

Ironically, the Commission also said part of its decision to go with the lower 5 cent rate, down from the previous 6.2c/kWh rate, was due to a lower forecast wholesale market price of electricity, particularly during daylight hours when PV electricity was being generated.

The commission said it did not take into account any environment or network benefits of rooftop solar, because of a “lack of evidence”. The decision was panned by the solar industry, who say the fair value of solar should be at least twice as much, if not equivalent to the full retail rate.

“This decision delivers a transfer of wealth from solar PV owners to electricity retailers,” said Australian Solar Council chief John Grimes.

“Solar energy exported to the grid is sold to your neighbors at the full retail rate, often upwards of $0.25 per kilowatt-hour. So paying a solar owner $0.05 cents per kilowatt hour for that exported energy is simply unfair.”

Solar Citizens national director Claire O’Rourke said the ESC had got its decision wrong, and was sending a starkly different message to Victorians that the state government, which just last week announced a Renewable Energy Roadmap aimed at achieving a renewable energy target of no less than 20 per cent by 2020 and with the stated goal of promoting rooftop solar uptake, and protecting the rights of existing rooftop solar households.

“The slashing of the feed-in tariff by the ESC is extremely unfair and risks undermining increased renewable energy as part of Victoria’s energy mix,” O’Rourke said in a statement on Tuesday.

“The Victorian government has committed to a review determining what a fair price should be later this year, but this could be too little too late if the ESC feed-in tariff cuts get the green light.

“It’s not proper process to cut the feed-in tariff now, before we know what a fair price for solar fed back into the grid should be.

“Energy Minister (Lily) D’Ambrosio should delay these changes until the results of the upcoming State Government review are available.

“It punishes tens of thousands of households that are likely to lose a large chunk of the already small financial return they receive from providing clean, renewable energy back into the grid.

“This cut will also make it more difficult for the thousands more families in Victoria who want to make the move to solar and enjoy the cost savings on electricity that rooftop solar can bring.”

This article was originally published on RE sister site, One Step Off The Grid. To sign up for the weekly newsletter, click here.