Electric Vehicles

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (14:42): Supplementary question: is the Treasurer saying that in relation to the number of electric vehicles in the state fleet it is not inclined to buy more vehicles until 2025, when price parity is reached, in order to be cost effective? Is that the effect of the minister's answer, that the less than 1 per cent of state fleet vehicles is likely to remain until price parity is achieved in four years' time?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:43): No, it's not. I am happy to sit down with the honourable member and run through the detail of it again, but no, it's not. The issue, as I indicated to the member, was in relation to whether they are fit for purpose and cost effective. One looks at a combination of both the initial purchase price and the ongoing whole-of-life costs of a vehicle. It's not just your purchase price, you look at what the cost of running the vehicle might happen to be and you work out a whole-of-life cost. That is the way the state fleet has always been run in relation to the purchase price.

We have also introduced some other flexibilities for departments. If, for example, as part of their package they previously had purchased 100 vehicles, if they were prepared to reduce the number of vehicles by five, so that it was 95 vehicles, we would look flexibly in terms of keeping the overall cost; that is, if they are going to run 95 instead of 100, we would look at that in terms of being cost effective.

So we are looking at all ways of trying to encourage cost-effectiveness on behalf of taxpayers, because this is taxpayers' money we are spending in relation to what is occurring. We are looking at flexibilities in terms of how we can encourage departments and agencies. The simple answer to the honourable member's question is no, it wouldn't be correct to interpret my original response in the way that he did.