Pearls and Irritations

A worldwide campaign against the reliability of EVs has been exposed on ABC Media Watch (Monday 22 July), which revealed claims made routinely in mainstream media were false. Host Paul Barry noted that similar false stories were reported widely in the US, UK and European media throughout this year, particularly by News Ltd outlets. This campaign was huge, indicative of an enormous purchase of print space across the world, not conventional advertising, but the bought-opinions of specialist journalists, designed to sow doubt for consumers, delivered by a media that routinely claims global warming is a hoax.

The massive anti-EV campaign is the latest technique by which oil companies bring their ‘climate heating is a hoax’ lies to the public. There are a plethora of newly germinated, well-funded, ‘anti-renewables’ action groups of ostensibly concerned citizens in all Western countries. The legacy media clamours to report their claims, giving the impression of large membership.

In Australia, the objector groups range from being against ‘off-shore wind farms’ claiming these structures kill whales, or against ‘on-shore wind farms’ claiming they destroy endangered animals and vital mountain habitat (and ruin the view). More traditional right-wing misinformation sources such as the IPA rage against ‘solar-panel farms’ claiming they occupy prime agricultural land (reducing food production), with each objector group purportedly composed of concerned ‘activist locals or farmers’.

There is remarkable similarity between all these campaigns, the ‘objections’ are all seemingly pro-environment, or pro-food; positions that actual environmentalist objectors to global-warming might espouse too. These oil-company-funded campaigns are meant to confuse the public, by seeming to object to renewable energy technologies for ‘almost the same reasons’ that green objectors complain about fossil-fuel driven global-warming. Indeed, one prominent ecologist misguidedly joined an action against mountain-top wind turbines built in prime habitat, while ignoring far greater loss of animal habitat due to farmers clearing remnant forests, legally and illegally.

The objections they espouse seem plausible, yet all are based on false claims. False stories about society, science and economics are standard fodder of right-wing politicians in all Western societies. These falsehoods are designed to sow confusion and fear. Fear is a commodity which demagogues rearticulate as populist complaints, helping them become community spokesmen. Why would oil companies want right-wing demagogues in power in the West? It is because they are intrinsically corruptible, and they promise to halt the present transition to renewables, extending the lifetime of fossil-fuel use for their oil company backers.

This format of dizzying populist falsehoods is foremost in the US Presidential campaign of Donald Trump – claiming the flow of refugees from South America is “’bringing crime’ and ‘polluting the blood’ of Americans”, when for more than a century Mexican immigrants have been a mainstay of the US, doing jobs that many Americans eschew. Trump is also promising to roll-back Joe Biden’s ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ which is funding transition to the renewable economy, instead he promises to “Drill, Drill, Drill” for more oil and gas. The susceptibility of sections of Western populations to demagogic messages is not remarkable. Some people feel threatened by outsiders, and heed simple solutions – here in Australia we have had three decades of cries to build more prisons, ban boat arrivals, dump refugees onto Nauru, all to garner votes for the Coalition.

Anti-EV scheming has been blazing along for years in Australia. Who can forget Scott Morrison’s claim that EVs cannot tow trailers, or that their limited mileage ‘would destroy the weekend trip’. Such comments by a Prime Minister in favour of gas-guzzling SUVs was an incredible intervention in free commerce. And the last Coalition government provided ABN holders with a ‘free-car’, as long as it was a gas-guzzler. Sales of SUVs have skyrocketed in recent years, tripling from just over 200,000 in 2010 to more than 600,000 in 2023, with SUVs alone making up more than half (55.8%) of all new cars purchased in 2023. More than 97% of cars sold in 2023 are diesel, or petrol powered, rather than EVs. Now they clog our cities and highways in vast numbers. Cars are parked along streets each evening, as garages overflow.

Back in 2021 alone, $18.1 billion was provided in temporary full expensing for business capital expenditure, which remarkably correlated with a 90% increase in utility truck and imported gas-guzzling SUV sales, because the small tray at back eliminated the ‘luxury car tax’. Small business owners and tradies took up this annual free-car rort with gusto. It was free because after 12 months accelerated depreciation, the car could be sold on with most of the initial value recovered. Then do it all again the following year, for yet another free ‘working vehicle’.

I previously thought these policies were simply to convert working tradies into Liberal voters, but the scale of the policies, their disruptive effects on the entire economy, and the forestalling of EV purchases suggest more powerful advocates were behind them. International oil and gas actively collaborated with carmakers to massively increase the size of ‘domestic cars’ into gas guzzlers. Now everybody who can buys a luxury SUV, with an unusable tray behind, as it is a ‘working vehicle’. With special sales subsidies and tax write-offs of course people snapped them up. Now there are almost 5 times as many SUVs than there are boats and trailers to pull, and more than one-and-a-half times more SUVs than tradies to drive them to work. Similar interventions also happened in the US to subsidize utility vehicles, and car makers have tried to prevent legislation to reduce carbon emissions.  Although international studies show vehicle efficiency has improved in the last two decades, the international shift to bigger private vehicles has increased fuel consumption and caused burgeoning CO₂ emissions.

Of course, in Australia there were other consequences too. The total moneys not collected by the government on utility vehicle purchases when the scheme operated from 2019-20 to 2022-23 tax years is close to $90 billion. That money remained in the hands of ABN holders who wanted to make more from their windfalls – they bought second homes, investment properties, holiday rental houses, and behold, both the rental and housing markets became overheated. Should we wonder why there is a housing crisis, driven by continually unaffordable property prices? Do we need to look further for why the inflation of retail goods prices has been unstoppable? Surely it is driven by these billions put-back into the hands of individual ABN holders by previous Coalition governments for almost half a decade.

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