Commentary
What is it about the thought processes of the policymakers in our capital cities?
Australia’s capital city and its government—the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Legislative Assembly—are seriously exploring ways to cement a Grand Canyon-like disconnect between the people and lofty ideas.
Currently, the latest thought bubble to hit the ACT’s Legislative Assembly is to ban petrol- and diesel-powered motor vehicles from Canberra’s city centre, and only allow electric cars. A city that, because of its low population, can boast the cleanest air of any capital city in Australia.
Yet it reeks of “virtue signalling” by city leaders by jumping on the bandwagon of London City’s Lord Mayor Sadiq Khan’s C40 Cities network, which describes itself as a “global network … of the world’s leading cities that are united in action to confront the climate crisis.”
Well, there you have it one statement.
Canberra is now presenting itself as a “world-class leading city.” Who could resist the alluring temptation of being so classified even if it is by self-identification?
Six Reasons Why This Fad Is a Bad Idea
First, a blind eye must be turned to the source of the power that generates the energy in the battery.
The fact the battery is charged by a coal-fired power station is studiously avoided as that would wreck the narrative.
As is so often the case, virtue-signalling policymakers avoid the torment their consciences should inflict upon themselves by adopting platitudes and superficially dismissing those asking the hard questions.
They use labels like “deniers” or some other pejorative glib statement to avoid the need to enter into the facts and detail of the issue at stake.
Second, and more fundamentally important, is the genesis of the emergence of the electric vehicle.
The lithium and other materials required to construct an electric vehicle require hard-core mining operations consuming tonnes of fossil fuels and nearly always underpaid workers, including children who live in squalor and poverty.
These profound dilemmas are inconvenient truths that are simply ignored as though their existence is just of nuisance value. But really, they are devastating in exposing the hypocrisy and moral dubiousness of electric vehicles.
Does keeping Canberra’s air quality at an even better standard justify the use of child labour, exploitative wages, and environmental vandalism?
There is a high moral cost to this mindless virtue signalling which simply sees the pollution being created elsewhere while devastating lives and environments in third-world countries.
Third, the capital cost of electric vehicles keeps them well out of the range of Australia’s average wage earner, let alone the low-wage-earning demographic.
In turn, this will mean the services and sights of Australia’s national capital, Canberra, will be an exclusion zone for those who can’t afford an electric car. Many low-income residents will be denied easy and affordable access to their own city and the services they desperately need.
Fourth, the hapless tourist, or grey nomad, travelling their own country will be denied entry to their own nation’s capital. Even the richest of Australians will find it an immense challenge, if not impossible, to tour Australia in a camper van or tow a caravan with an electric-powered engine.
Fifth, as Australia faces an ever-growing power shortage courtesy of policy emanating from Canberra, even greater stress and strain will be imposed on the energy networks as the energy that used to be provided outside of the networks will need to force itself through the already overloaded grids.
The mandating of electric vehicle use will simply exacerbate the energy issues confronting Australia with the decommissioning of coal-fired electricity in favour of the unreliable solar and wind sectors.
Sixth, in the absence of a car manufacturing sector in Australia and the mandating of electric vehicles, the Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers will be overjoyed at their good fortune, courtesy of the out-of-touch policy bowfins in Canberra.
Remember, it will be the same ilk who will, in their sanctimonious manner, have their obligatory virtue signalling car stickers (made of plastic) railing against child labour, low wages, the evils of the Western world using and exploiting the resources of third world countries, and the cost of living. And let’s not forget “tourism jobs trump resource jobs.”
Sound environmental stewardship is always to be applauded and encouraged, but it becomes more difficult as counter-productive fads with mammoth price tags attached discriminate against the lower wage earners.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
