Over the weekend Troy Bowker lashed the Government for their new ute tax and EV policies:
Labour’s car tax is not only another broken promise regarding no new taxes, but it also is based on a fundamentally flawed understanding of the impact of electric vehicles (EVs) battery production and disposal on the environment.
The hypocrisy from the political left to conveniently ignore facts which do not suit their political agenda appears to have no shame.
Politicians constantly advertise what they claim are the sparkling clean, green credentials of EVs. I believe these politically driven, so called “noble” assertions are badly misleading and dangerous for the New Zealand public to blindly accept without debating the environmental credibility of EVs and fully understanding the downstream costs to taxpayers.
No one in Government seems to have stopped to ask just how environmentally friendly EVs actually are.
NZ Herald
Astute readers already know that EVs are far from clean and green, and in large part are actually coal powered, and that is before we get into the ethical sourcing of components.
In New Zealand, few have asked what we know about the supply chains of EV batteries, including the human rights implications of using child labour to mine essential elements necessary to make the large EV batteries.
The point being missed, ignored, or not properly debated, is the total cost on the environment from the manufacture, use, and disposal of EVs versus petrol or diesel cars.
There is plenty of research to suggest EVs are actually worse for the environment overall than fossil fuel cars, just as there is research they are better.
None of that research properly deals with the CO2 emissions from the disposal and recycling of batteries. The EV industry lobby groups all tell us to not to be concerned and to “hope” that technology catches up so that the production and disposal of EV batteries will at some stage have a much lower carbon footprint. Surely this is putting the cart before the horse. Why can’t they address the elephant in the room regarding disposing of millions of EV batteries in a climate friendly manner and provide hard facts to support this? They can’t and they won’t because they simply don’t know.
I’m pretty sure they also simply don’t care that some poor African child has helped to mine the cobalt, or that the rare earth mineral mines in Mongolia are toxic cesspits. For the sanctimonious virtue signallers, who are actually busily choking on their clouds of smug, it matters not one bit that effectively, slave labour built their car’s components.
Then there is the unfairness of the ute tax:
In future, when EV supporters in Parnell, Kelburn and Fendalton step into their Audi e-tron or Jaguar I-Pace to pick up the kids from their private schools, they will be directly benefitting from the car tax imposed on farmers, tradies and anyone else who either has no choice but to buy a petrol or diesel vehicle, cannot afford an EV, or simply doesn’t actually want to own one.
These urban liberals are the people Labour has chosen to subsidise rather than genuine hard working farmers, nurses, teachers, tradies and other middle income New Zealanders.
And what about the low income families of Otara, Porirua and Burwood who drive 15 year old people carriers because that’s all they can afford?
Labour doesn’t care about Pasifika in their ‘poly-wagons’ – they know they’ll vote Labour forever. They can safely screw them over knowing it won’t cost them a single vote in South Auckland.
What they have done though, is arrogantly assume that the tradie’s missus will keep voting for Jacinda even though their livelihood has been sacrificed on the altar of good intentions. I’m not sure that Labour has thought that one through properly. Perhaps seeing thousands of utes and vans sporting anti-car tax stickers might shock them out of their arrogance and hubris?
The manufacture of these batteries does not come without an environmental cost. Once CO2 emissions from the production of batteries are taken into account, Germany’s Institute of Economic Research argued EVs do more harm to the environment than a modern diesel engine.
Manufacturing is only the start of the problem. After an EV battery loses its ability to hold its charge, the metals and chemicals inside them contain toxic substances that are currently very difficult and expensive to dispose of cleanly. Technology hasn’t developed enough globally to come up with a way to either dispose of them safely, or recycle them in the volumes required.
If Labour wants all of New Zealand’s approximately four million vehicles to be EVs, then before they tax us even more can they please outline the plan to dispose of millions of toxic used EV batteries generally driven by the urban elite? This is not an unreasonable request.
A request that will be ignored.
These issues need to be addressed openly and transparently with the public, most of whom assume EVs are actually good for the environment and aren’t produced with the help of child labour in poor countries.
Both of these assumptions made by EV buyers are false in my opinion. If Labour cannot address these issues with the public prior to conducting their latest tax raid on the income of hard working New Zealanders, they need to abandon this policy
That would require joined together thinking. That is a skill anyone in Labour has yet to manage to develop. Most of their ministers are still learning to crayon inside the lines.
National couldn’t really go wrong if they picked up the phone and spent some time listening to Troy Bowker. If they don’t, then you can be sure Winston Peters will.
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