29 April 2021
A Morrison government decision to proceed with the construction of a new gas fired power station in the Hunter region is expected to be announced imminent, despite the proposal being labelled unnecessary and likely to be rarely used.
Last year, prime minister Scott Morrison and energy minister Angus Taylor set a deadline, of the end of April, for the energy market to make firm ‘final investment decisions’ to construct at least 1,000MW of new capacity to replace the soon to retire Liddell power station.
If the private market failed to come forward with proposals to its satisfaction, the Morrison government threatened to directly intervene in the energy market, directing government-owned Snowy Hydro to build a 750MW gas generator at Kurri Kurri in the Hunter region.
Opposing the proposal, the EVC wrote in the open letter, “The Andrews Government’s proposed tax on electric vehicles is the only stand-alone electric vehicle tax in the world. No other jurisdiction has introduced such a targeted levy on the cleanest vehicles on the road without significant incentives to balance it out.”
Apart from the aforementioned organizations, the long list of opponents includes EV charger manufacturer Tritium, JetCharge, EV truck converter SEA Electric, the Clean Energy Council, the Australian Conservation Foundation, Solar Citizens, Doctors for the Environment Australia, GetUp, and Environment Victoria.
The controversial EV tax would be assessed at a rate of 2.5 cents per kilometer would be charged each time registration is renewed. EV owners would have to maintain records for at least five years. Those who would fail to produce the records would be slapped with penalties. However, owners of gasoline-powered cars would not be required to produce any su
Anthony Whealy, the director of the Centre for Public Integrity and a former NSW supreme court judge, said: âThe sheer magnitude of the profits realised by private individuals and companies from a scheme essentially designed to protect and restore the environment raises serious concerns.â
The transactions warranted âa thorough investigation by the NSW auditor generalâ, he said.
Offsets are used to compensate for the environmental destruction caused by major development by protecting and restoring endangered habitat elsewhere.
In NSW, developers can do this by purchasing offset credits from properties that landholders have committed to conserving permanently under an agreement with the state government.
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