ACT has slammed the Government's new scrap-and-replace scheme for electric vehicles saying it's a "waste of taxpayer money".
The Government's revealed its first Emissions Reduction Plan which showed how emissions will be reduced over the coming decades as the country targets net-zero by 2050.
The plan contains more than 300 actions and covers transport, energy, building, agriculture, forestry, and waste. That's our entire economy and society, with Finance Minister Grant Robertson describing it as "a turning point in history".
Part of the $2.9 billion plan is going towards getting Kiwis out of their beloved gas-guzzlers and into electric vehicles. The new scrap-and-replace scheme will cost $569 million, subsidising low-and middle-income families to ditch their clunkers for an EV.
In the new scheme, the Government would help you scrap your old car with a rebate to help buy a new electric car.
But ACT’s Climate Change spokesperson Simon Court told AM it's "totally unnecessary".
"It's totally unnecessary in terms of carbon emissions as the Emissions Trading Scheme already puts a cap on New Zealand's transport emissions and it's also a complete waste of taxpayer money," Court told AM host Ryan Bridge.
"For context, New Zealanders are already moving towards a cleaner vehicle fleet. Every year in New Zealand we shred around 150,000 old cars, last year we imported 200,000 brand new and late model and clean vehicles. This policy is completely unnecessary and we have a cost of living crisis."
Bridge question if the reason why more electric vehicles are coming into New Zealand, is because of the schemes put in place by the Government but Court said that supply won't cope with the scheme.
"The vehicle manufacturers who came to the transport committee last year said they would love to sell New Zealand more EVs but they won't be making enough to sell to the world by 2028," Court told AM.
"So any schemes that the Government uses to force demand are a waste of taxpayers' money, they only force up the price of used vehicles on the open market, which actually makes it hard for Kiwi families who are already facing a cost of living crisis."
The Motor Trade Association (MTA) raised concerns about how electric vehicles are being prioritised in the Government's Emissions Reduction Plan.
While the organisation says it supports the "scrap and replace" of dirty vehicles, it says the emphasis on replacing them with electrics is flawed.
MTA advocacy manager Greig Epps told AM, that there are other options.
"It's also about the transition and it's what are you moving into and what we are very keen to see is people move into something cleaner," Epps said.
"So the focus on EV solely or EV's and electrified vehicles like hybrids and plug-in hybrids, that's probably not where we would go, we would just want to see people transition into a cleaner car, there are lots of options."
Epps said they have been calling for a scrappage scheme for a while mainly for safety concerns.
"We have been calling for a scrappage scheme, we started calling for it based on the age of the fleet," he told AM.
"The average age of the fleet is over 14 years old and there are safety concerns around vehicles as they get past the age of 15. So we started from a safety point of the view and then we also realised that you could build in some emissions reductions by bringing down the total emissions of the fleet and getting those higher emitting cars out of the fleet."
Later on AM on Tuesday, Climate Change Minister James Shaw defended the scrap-and-replace scheme saying the point of the policy is not about handing out free cash for electric cars.
"I think it's a mistake to say it's all about purchasing electric vehicles, it isn't, there are a number of other options available," Shaw told AM.
"One of the other things we are looking at is in some cases people might be able to use that to subsidise public transport or to buy e-bikes in some places where that is the best thing for them to do.
"But also the point is for many houses actually just getting another petrol car but one which is way more efficient would have a huge beneficial impact on their household living costs because the cost of fuel would be so much lower."
Shaw reiterated if lower-income families moved away from vehicles that chug through fuel, it could "dramatically lower their household living costs".
"If you look at second-hand [Toyota] Prius' there are thousands of them in the market at quite low prices," Shaw said.
"If you're able to just get them [Toyota Prius] into the zone where a low-income family was able to afford them, then that would perfectly suit their needs and then that would really dramatically lower their household living costs."
Watch the full interview with Simon Court and Greig Epps above.
