I agree 100%, but we can't compete making E.V's against countries that sell 40 million cars a year.
We would have to build plants to make electric motors, control systems, chips, etc, as with our car industry we couldn't do it once we stopped tariffs.
But having said that, we do get a much better product cheaper.
So it becomes a balance, what we have an advantage on we need to support.
That is what annoys me like Lynas building the rare earth processing plant in Malaysia, then having nothing but trouble with the Malaysian Government.
We have the rare earths, we have all the raw materials to make all styles of batteries, we should be making them, not sending the raw materials offshore for processing, unless the company that buys the raw materials builds a processing plant here.
WOW that sounds like the 1960's when the companies had to build blast furnaces, if they mined the raw materials, they had to build towns to support the mines, life goes around in a circle doesn't it.
We need to stop all the nonsense around finding reasons to make manufacturing difficult in Australia, we need to demand if value adding in Australia isn't viable, why not.
No one wants to ask the hard questions, if we don't ask the hard questions, we don't face the reality, why should we get 0.5% return on the value of the finished product, by sending the raw material offshore for processing?
I think everyone knows the answers, but no one is allowed to speak these days, for fear of retribution.
As Brendon Grylls found out.
With the Nationals parachuted into Opposition, there was a chance the iron ore tax proposed by former leader Brendon Grylls in 2017 could make a come back. The party says it won’t.
From the article:
Mr Grylls wanted to increase the 25 cent per tonne production rental fee on iron ore, which was set in agreements with the miners in the 1960s, to $5 a tonne, raising $7.2 billion over four years. The proposal, which was put forward at a time when WA was receiving a lower GST share and struggling with a debt-laden budget, was met with fierce opposition from the industry. The miners waged a multi-million dollar campaign against the tax, ultimately costing Mr Grylls his seat.