National's climate spokesperson is supportive of the Government's electric vehicle (EV) feebate policy, despite opposition from the party's leadership.



A feebate scheme has been proposed which would see up to $3000 added to the sale of our highest-polluting vehicles in order to subside cleaner vehicles by up to $8000 from 2021.

In an interview with Newshub Nation, Todd Muller was asked if he'd keep the policy if National won power at the next election.

"I'm broadly supportive," he said.

"Transport is an area that has 20 percent of our emissions but more critically we have at our fingertips a technology, in this case electric vehicles and maybe in time hydrogen vehicles, that you can roll across the New Zealand sector to improve emissions.

"If you do have technology available to assist with those emissions reductions then I think it is a fair question to ask about how best can we speed up that adoption.

"A feebate is just one part of the equation. I'm interested that they haven't looked at the tail of our very old and increasingly unsafe cars, at what can be done to reduce them from the New Zealand fleet that is appropriately fair and equitable for those people who often drive those, who're often at the lower end of our socio-economic profile."

Muller's position contradicts that taken by the National Party leadership.

Deputy Leader Paula Bennett derided the policy as "yet another tax on hard-working New Zealanders" on The AM Show. Leader Simon Bridges, who owns an EV and as Transport Minister rolled out an EV incentive policy in 2016, also blasted the policy on Twitter.



