The shadow climate change minister, Mark Butler, has doubled down on the need for policy to drive the transition to electric vehicles in Australia, arguing electrification is “unstoppable” and declaring Australia will become like Cuba if the Coalition continues to obstruct progress.

In his first significant comments post-election about the controversy around Labor’s policies to curb emissions from vehicles, Butler has used a speech to a conference in Sydney to blast the brutal partisan campaign the Morrison government ran during the federal election contest.

Butler has signalled Labor will review the election measures but is not inclined to retreat, remaining “engaged in this area … [to] make sure that we can play a role in ensuring that consumers get the maximum benefit from the EV revolution, because it is truly a revolution”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mark Butler has used a speech to a conference in Sydney to blast partisan campaign the Morrison government ran during the federal election contest. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

While Scott Morrison accused Bill Shorten of wanting to “end the weekend” during the campaign because of Labor’s policies to curb vehicle emissions and encourage the take-up of EVs, Butler insists there were a whole range of “really compelling reasons” why governments would support the transition, including the fact that transport emissions were the “fastest growing area of emissions in our economy”.

Butler said the automotive industry had already crossed the electrification threshold, and as a consequence of the then Abbott government’s decision to end subsidies for local car manufacturing, Australia had little choice but to get on board because we were now a “technology taker”.

“Australian consumers have become used to having the broadest possible choice of models available in the world,” Butler said. “We have more models of cars available in our showrooms than Americans do, and if we want to continue to have that level of choice as motorists we’re going to have to recognise the reality that the global car industry is starting to shift to electric vehicles.

“Now, Barnaby [Joyce] might think that we can just pull our cardigans over our head and stick to our petrol and diesel cars, but in 10 years’ time we’ll be like Cuba, just doing up our 2017 Commodores because the rest of the world is not making petrol and diesel cars to sell to us anymore.

“I think consumers actually want us to keep that level of choice as well as doing all those other things that I think are really important.”

John Setka: union boss' bid to fight Labor party expulsion thrown out of court Read more

Butler said Labor drafted its election policies – which included a national electric vehicles target of 50% new car sales by 2030 – after deep engagement with stakeholders and with industry. He said while the measures were considered to be ambitious, “when you set it against where the global car industry is heading I don’t think it was a particularly remarkable policy”.

He said the government’s partisan stance during the election contest meant trying to land a sensible policy in Australia would now be “a pretty long, hard road”.

Butler said it was possible for state governments to step up in the absence of commonwealth leadership but “the government from the prime minister down dug themselves in pretty hard in this area – to the point where it’s difficult to see how they’re going to be able to climb out of this quickly without sparking another internal struggle within the Coalition party room”.

“The commonwealth government can slow it down and make it much harder for consumers to get the maximum benefit out of the transition, but this transition is ultimately unstoppable,” he said. “In the Labor party, as you might have seen and heard, across the policy spectrum, we are obviously going through a pretty substantial review of policy detail – but we are very keen to remain engaged in this area.”