Jack Hudson

GAWLER councillor and electric car owner Paul Koch said he’s disappointed in the proposed electric car tax put forward in the State Government’s budget last week.

If introduced, it would make South Australia the first jurisdiction in the world to introduce a tax on electric cars and Mr Koch said that’d be a horrid result.

“It’s a disincentive for people to buy electric cars for a start,” he said.

“It sends a pretty poor message to the rest of the world, as we’d be the only jurisdiction in the world that has a tax on electric cars.

“It’s a backwards step, especially when there’s only about 3000 electric vehicles in the state anyway, you actually want to build the numbers.”

Mr Koch said upon purchasing his own electric car, he already paid a significant premium.

“When you buy an electric car, you pay a premium,” he said.

“We could’ve bought an Elantra, but we paid a lot more to get the electric car, so we paid a lot more tax, so we’ve paid that anyway.

“We already feel we’re contributing to the tax take by the fact we’ve already bought an electric car at a premium price.”

State Opposition leader Peter Malinauskas said we should be doing more for the environment.

“As a state, we must be doing everything we can to support sectors which are good for the environment and create jobs,” he said.
“We should be striving to be a national leader when it comes to electric cars, which would benefit our economy and our environment.”