National shifts clean car stance
National Party leader Christopher Luxon says he supports having an emissions standard for vehicle importers after having to clarify muddled comments he made during a TV interview.
Luxon, pictured, caused confusion after telling the AM Show on November 16 that if National was elected into power at next year’s general election it would retain the clean car discount – a policy it has vociferously opposed.
The party later clarified that he had misspoken and was actually talking about the clean car standard, which will come into force from January 1.
It still represents a shift in its stance on the government’s clean car programme as up until now National has spoken out against the standard and voted against it earlier this year.
Questions remain over the extent of the change in National’s approach because the party has floated that it supports emissions standards of some kind but opposes the clean car standard.
Luxon told the AM Show: “We’ve got a government that is taxing people with utes and there is no alternative and subsidising wealthy Tesla drivers by giving them subsidies.
“We think there’d be a different way to do it. We’d keep the clean car discount to make sure we’ve got low-emissions cars coming in.”
A spokesman for Luxon said the leader was actually supporting the clean car standard, which will progressively increase the emissions standards of vehicles being brought into the country.
Labour was quick to pounce on the apparent policy reversal by Luxon, with Michael Wood, Minister of Transport, putting out a press release on November 16.
“This U-turn is great news for New Zealanders. We all know what sitting on our hands on this issue will do – and it’s catastrophic,” Wood says.
He went on to defend the feebate scheme, saying it had helped people buy clean vehicles, most of which were not Teslas.
“Across the programme we’ve supported Kiwis to purchase around 38,200 Daihatsus, Fords, Hondas, Hyundais, Mazdas, Mitsubishis, Nissans, Subarus, Suzukis, Toyotas, and Kias, paying out over $113 million on these vehicles,” Wood adds.
Discount ‘needs to go’
Act has maintained its criticism of the feebate scheme, which was launched in April this year.
Simon Court, the party’s spokesman for transport and climate change, says the clean car discount “needs to go” and Act will keep campaigning “to get rid of it”.
“The reality is the clean car discount has always been virtue-signalling nonsense from a government that hates petrol-powered cars and is out of touch with the practicalities of many Kiwis’ day-to-day lives.”
Court emphasises that the Imported Motor Vehicle Industry Association has said the policy is “contributing to unfair market conditions, increased costs to consumers and industry, decreasing public trust in parallel imports and decreased efficacy of the programme”.
He adds the Motor Industry Association estimates it will increase the price of light vehicles by 15-20 per cent.
“Instead of taxing tradies to subsidise EVs, we would give every household a carbon-tax refund from the emissions trading scheme of around $750 every year to use as they see fit,” says Court.
