Electric Vehicles

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:35): My question is to the Minister for Energy. Will the minister follow California's policy on electric vehicle subsidies? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Dr CLOSE: The minister, in answer to a previous question, pointed at California's road user charge. I believe the minister was referring to a $100 registration charge that California has for electric vehicles. However, California also has a $7,000 subsidy for purchasing electric vehicles, and I'm interested in whether that means he will be completely following the policy of California.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:35): In fact, I can inform the house that California is following us. California is actually looking at South Australia and saying, 'Look what a great job they are doing in energy down there.' They are looking at how simultaneously we are reducing the cost of electricity, we are making the supply of electricity more reliable and we are reducing emissions.

Do you know what they notice in California? In California, they notice how different things are now from how they were before. People in California looked at South Australia and saw an increase of $477 over two years in the cost of electricity to the average South Australian in the last two years of the previous Labor government.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Cheltenham is warned for a second time.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Of course, now they see a $158 reduction in electricity for the average household in South Australia. They see blackouts, including—they don't like us to refer to it too often—one statewide blackout that happened back in 2016 under the previous government.

Dr CLOSE: Point of order: relevance. The question is about a subsidy for purchasing electric vehicles.

The SPEAKER: I have the point of order.

Dr Close interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I have the point of order. The question related directly to a comparison between California and South Australia. The minister is answering the question. The minister has the call.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Thank you, Mr Speaker. In California they have noticed that we have not had one event of forced load shedding in South Australia in the last two years. These are challenging times, and I lose sleep over it. I'm not saying it is easy, but industry, government and regulators have all pulled their weight and all worked incredibly hard to make a big difference there. Simultaneously, emissions are reducing.

I don't know exactly what the penetration of electric vehicles is in the total fleet in California—I could look that up, and I will look that up—but the federal government says that in five years, in 2025, it expects a 27 per cent penetration, a 27 per cent share of the total fleet of passenger vehicles across Australia. Our ambitions are higher than that, our ambitions are higher than any other state in Australia and they are in fact higher than the state of California. We are looking around the world. We see that they have used the road user charge in the way we intend to do.

As I said before, we will make sure that everybody in this parliament gets a chance to look at exactly what is on the table before they decide how they are going to vote on it. With regard to the question about a subsidy—I think it was a $7,000 subsidy—we have just seen a $6,000 decrease in the cost, the retail price, of an electric vehicle from last year to this year. Our policies are working,

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Perhaps in California they hand over $7,000 of taxpayers' money to give to the manufacturer. Do you know what we do in South Australia, Mr Speaker? We apply our energy policies in the smartest way possible so that the manufacturer hands over the $6,000 to the consumer. It is a much, much smarter way to go.

So we look across the world. We don't think we know everything. We are learning every day from other jurisdictions, but we are trying very hard to make sure that the taxpayers of South Australia, the motorists of South Australia, the electricity consumers of South Australia, get the very best deal possible. Sometimes the smartest way is to use taxpayers' money to make it happen; sometimes it's not the smartest way to make it happen. We don't believe that it's just always about handing out a subsidy.

A $6,000 reduction—from $50,000 to $44,000 in one year, retail price of that vehicle—is very significant, and that is a much better way of doing things than handing over a $7,000 subsidy of taxpayers' money to the manufacturer. Keep in mind that money will go straight towards the purchase price of the vehicle, not towards the new purchaser of the vehicle.