I wonder if anyone has analysed how Aotearoa would be positioned to ride out the current fossil fuel supply crisis, if the two-headed Chris hadn't gutted government policy for a rapid renewable energy transition?
First Hipkins throwing a bunch of it on his policy bonfire. FYI he's a former training manager for NZ's biggest privately-owned fossil fuel company, Todd Energy.
Then CLuxon tanking most of what was left of it in 2023/24, as leader of a fossil-friendly NatACT First govt.
Under Labour’s Clean Car policies about 10% of new cars were full EVs. It dropped to about 3% afterwards. Our roads would have a higher proportion of EVs but still not enough. Trucks? Still diesel.
Labour’s other policies involved industry and replacing their vehicles with electric alternatives, eg, milk tankers which — best as I can find from press releases — are 1% electric.
We would be better but still miles off.
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@futuresprog
I'd have to look them up but there were a bunch of other things that were in place under the Ardern-Robertson deal with the Greens. Scapped with by Hipkins.
Plus a bunch more scrapped by NatACT First. The most obvious being the electric ferries. Our main surface interisland link depends on a fuel we *cannot produce here*. That's very shortsighted.
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FWIW I don't really support the Clean Car Discount. It was public subsidies mostly for comfortable, middle class people. They should have been low-interest loans not grants.
That way they would have been able to hand out far more of them, or covered more of each purchase price, at almost no real cost to the public. So we could have got a lot more low-to-no emissions vehicles into the road faster. Creating repair and resale markets that make them affordable to workers.
The CCD
The CCD was subsidies for EV importers, enabled by comfortable middle class people. Suppliers did respond to the CCD by increasing prices and then dropping them after its end.
There needs to be some much more investment into public transport as Auckland has done by electrifying their train network.
Strypey
Future Sprog