A lack of charging points is a major roadblock for the uptake of electric cars in Australia Simon McGill/Getty

Electric cars have become a heated topic in the lead up to Australia’s May 18 election, despite support from both major parties.

Prime minister Scott Morrison denounced the opposition party’s aim to have electric cars account for 50 per cent of new vehicles by 2030, saying it would herald the “end of the weekend”.

This is because an electric car just doesn’t have the “grunt” Australians are looking for, the Liberal leader argued.


“It’s not going to tow your trailer. It’s not going to tow your boat,” he said while canvassing for votes in Western Sydney earlier this month. “It’s not going to get you out to your favourite camping spot with your family.”

This fervent backlash to this push for greater electric car uptake struck a strange chord. The Liberal government has been a supporter of electric cars in recent years, trying to boost numbers by providing cheaper loans and funding for a network of ultra-fast electric vehicle recharge stations. During their time in government, the number of new electric cars bought rose by 67 per cent between 2016 and 2017.

Nevertheless, the Liberal Party turned their messaging to tradies and car buffs, funding a series of Facebook advertisements that falsely claimed the opposition leader Bill Shorten was going to tax popular car brands.

Australia has been one of the slowest high-income country to embrace electric vehicles, with only one in 500 new cars currently estimated to be electric. A major roadblock has been developing the recharging infrastructure for such a vast country, which echoes similar chicken and egg dilemmas faced by other countries trying to increase the uptake in the vehicles.

This is where Shorten’s other goal, to make electric vehicles account for 50 per cent of the federal government fleet by 2025, could help in establishing infrastructure for the public more broadly.

Other issues

Opinion polls indicate that the public’s lukewarm feelings toward Labor leader Bill Shorten won’t stand in the way of his party making a majority government in the election. The current government, a coalition of the centre-right Liberal Party and the farmer- and rural-focused Nationals party, have been trailing in opinion polls despite a modest boost after the recent federal budget.

The government’s perceived weakness on climate action has undermined their hold on some longstanding safe Liberal seats, but the centre-left Labor Party also faces criticism for not taking a harder stance on the proposed Carmichael coal mine inland from the Great Barrier Reef.

The proposed thermal coal mine has faced multiple legal challenges, from Indigenous groups about their right to use the land, and from environmental groups alarmed by the potentially dangerous effect it might have on the reef and local ecosystems.

Nevertheless, the mine is still popular among voters in regional Queensland where jobs are a strong selling-point.

Health will be another important election issue for Australians, who are legally required to vote.

Both major parties have committed to ending a freeze on the rebate for GP visits, meaning doctors will be paid more by the government and ideally pass that saving onto patients who will pay less out of pocket.

While Labor is typically seen as stronger on healthcare, the Coalition have been driving home their $10 billion investment in new and expensive medicines recommended by the country’s expert panel. In response, the opposition announced it, too, would fund all drugs recommended by the panel.