Electric Vehicles

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:10): My question is to the Premier. How much will the Premier's electric car tax cost per vehicle?

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (14:10): Well, again, I am happy to answer this question, and I can speak on it all day actually, but I have actually covered this information off—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —and if those people opposite had been listening to the budget speech, which was delivered by the Hon. Rob Lucas in this place only on Tuesday, or if they had read any of the documentation or seen any of the public commentary they would know the answer, but I am happy to provide it. That is going to be determined, and we are consulting with other—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my left!

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —jurisdictions on the best way—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Premier has the call.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —to do this. But there are very few electric vehicles in South Australia at the moment—between 2,500 and 3,000 electric vehicles—and we expect this to increase in the future. We know we are making the transition from conventional vehicles over to electric vehicles and whatever might come thereafter, and there is plenty of work being done now on plenty of other different versions, but we do need to have a contribution made by—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: If it moves you'll tax it.

The SPEAKER: The member for West Torrens is warned.

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL: —road users to our road maintenance and to the creation of new roads and the upgrade of roads here in South Australia. What our budget is actually demonstrating is that we are a government which is very significantly investing in road infrastructure in South Australia—a major, major set of investments which were made right across the state from the Strzelecki Track, right through to projects which are in metropolitan Adelaide and then, of course, down to the South-East—right across this state.

We made that investment on behalf of the taxpayers of South Australia, and also I might add with the cooperation of our federal colleagues in the Coalition government where they were providing funds as well. It is important that we continue to roll out these projects, and we do need sustainable funding for these projects into the future, and that is what the EV charge is designed to do.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the leader, I call to order the member for Cheltenham, the member for Badcoe and the member for Chaffey. I warn the member for Lee.