“Hello, is that the Prime Minister’s office?”
“Yes, can I help you?”
“Yes, I was hoping that I’d get a go because I had a go.”
“Sorry?”
“I was ringing Scott so he’d give me a go. I took his advice and had a go. We had been saving to buy an electric car because my wife really wanted one. But then I heard the PM talk about Winx’s owners so I went out and spent the money on a share in a racehorse instead well, to cut to the chase, I now have no wife, no home and no money because the horse broke down and…”
“That’s unfortunate but what do expect Mr Morrison to do about it?”
“Well, he said that those who had a go would get a go from his government so I was hoping that he could replace my house and organise a new wife for me. Oh, and some money would be nice. I don’t expect to get it all back but even just they purchase price would be helpful…”
“You can’t expect the PM to get you a new wife…”
“Ok, even if he had a word to the old one and said that the racehorse business was his fault. She hates him anyway so it’s not like he’d be losing a voter…”
“This is really nothing to do with…”
“Look, can ScoMo… You don’t mind if I call him, ScoMo, do you? Anyway, he quite clearly encouraged me to go out and buy a racehorse when he said that it wasn’t just Winx but the owners and trainers that ‘epitomised the fair go for those who have a go’.”
“It’s not Mr Morrison’s fault if you were silly enough to lose all your money buying a racehorse.”
“But he was the one who said that it…”
“I’m sorry but we’re not in the business of subsidising gambling losses.”
“Oh no, there’s no gambling losses. I mean the horse never even got to the races. I guess you could say it was rather like reopening Christmas Island detention centre.”
“Buying a racehorse is a gamble!”
“Not the way Scottie described it. He said it was just having a go. I almost felt like it’d be a betrayal of ANZAC spirit if I didn’t go out and get one.”
“We’re not giving you any money back!”
“Ok, ok. Well, at least could he go out and at least say a few things that would help me convince my wife that an electric car would be an even bigger waste of money?”
“Sir, you clearly aren’t listening.”
“I mean, it wouldn’t cost him anything would it? He could talk about how much trouble they are to charge…point out that they’re range is limited because we don’t make extension cords more than about fifty metres long so they’re not suitable for long trips… And they’re unreliable because thanks to Labor and The Greens we don’t have enough coal to…”
“Sir, you need to listen…”
“Come on, what harm would it do?”
“Sir, as I said, you clearly aren’t listening. Mr Morrison and his team have been doing that every day. Just get your wife to listen to SAD.”
“SAD?”
“Sky After Dark. It’s an acronym.
“Ah appropriate because it’s full of SAD old has-been politicians and journos. So I just need to get her to watch that?”
“That’s right, we’ve said all those things and more. Now I’m sorry about your horse, but really there’s nothing more we can do.”
“What about an excise on electric cars to make them prohibitively expensive?”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, ‘What about an excise on electric cars to make them prohibitively expensive?’ And you could place a special tax on the charging stations. Call it the Renewable Electric Vehicle or REV tax. No, not tax, because Labor does that and you only have new surcharges. Then you could call it REVS.”
“Sorry, sir, we may be able to help you after all. How would you like to join a team of advisers for the current Prime Minister? It’s good pay and…”
“No thanks. I’m not interest in casual work, I’m looking for something more permanent.”
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Absolutely brilliant
Brilliant Rossleigh. After reading Cormann’s babble throughout Senate estimates I needed chearing up.
Very well depicted Rossleigh, as usual! Although I think electric vehicles will be the future, whether we like it or not, here in this vast continent we are all so bloody far from everyone else (just look at an atlas!), that to have any chance of electric vehicles being of any use all around the country, there would have to be thousands of charging stations installed. And will that happen–imagine the huge expense involved in installing them, for instance! They work ok in the UK & probably throughout Europe too, but in our vast spread of cities & states, very difficult to imagine it happening for many years to come!
Just magic. Will still be giggling this time tomorrow. Thankyou for the laughs.
The coalition and Newscorp have wasted no time in rubbishing Electric Vehicles with the Tele screeching that Dali Steggal drives a petrol vehicle “how dare she”
Chris Kenny on SKY had an invited panel of muppets who all agreed with him that EV’s were never going to be a real thing and as Kenny noted, a trip from Sydney to Dubbo would, in an EV, require two overnight stays in motels whilst the EV was recharged over twelve hours : much hilarity and agreement all round. Labor and Shorten are so silly.
Unfortunately Energy Minister Angus Taylor late last year promised electric vehicles “will soon have access to an ultra-rapid charging network” that “will provide a range of up to 400 kilometres in just fifteen minutes.”
Today, as reported in Crikey ” even the Oz, which had previously mocked Shorten, was reporting on Taylor’s humiliation and noting that Coalition supporter Trevor St Baker claimed to be manufacturing chargers that could do the job “within 10 minutes”.
It is very hard being a coalition person when you don’t get the memo telling you to start denying science and innovation !
(1) Electric Vehicles(EVs) cannot tow. False. In fact Ludicrous.
(2) Electric Vehicles take 8 to 9 hours overnight to charge. False.
(3) Electric Vehicles cannot substitute for your 4WD on the weekend. Absolutely False.
(4) Electric Vehicles are no substitute for your ute or SUV. False
(5) Electric Vehicles cannot travel very far. False
(6) Electric Vehicles will cost you $20,000 more than an equivalent petrol car. False
(7) Electric Vehicles are cheaper to operate, maintain & fuel, with high Return on Investment (ROI). TRUE
(1) Electric motors do not have an RPM sweetspot, and therefore do not have to operate in a narrow RPM window, to avoid being ‘laboured’ or ‘Over-revved’. Electric motors have very high torque and are ideal for towing, in fact Deisel Electric trains are electric motors with the electricity provided by the diesel engine, freight trains hauling 1,000+ tons. Huge yellow 100 Ton mining ‘Tonka’ trucks have electric motors in the wheel hubs, the generator to power them is where people would expect an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), and so on.
(2) EVs range is purely determined by the capacity of it’s battery bank, the efficiency of it’s design and the skill of the driver. For example take your foot of the accelerator & the electric motor ‘stops’, in reality is live yet not rotating & consuming no power. There is no no idling & consumption as for ICE. Similarly release the accelator under appropriate conditions and the vehicle will ‘coast’ as the motor spins freely unpowered with no resistant inertia as for ICE. Then of course there are the charging stations throughout Oz. Even just any old 240V AC power point. Charge time is determined by remaining capacity, ie how many KWHs to recharge. This can be as little as 10mins or less with a specialized fast charger or station, to 8 to 9 hours overnight on domestic 240V AC. Ideally the slower the charge, the greater the battery total lifetime
(3) An EV configured as 4WD is far far superior to an ICE under all circumstances. The solid State controller that controllers the electric motor can provide anywhere from 0% to 100 % of the motors output in fine or gross increments as desired because it is not limited to an ICE revs sweetspot. An electric motor provides up to 400% more torque compared to an equivalent KW rated ICE. The combination of these characteristics leaves a similar ICE 4WD bogged, stranded, or left for dust. For example, an Electric 4WD in low first 4WD range started from a standing stop requires skilled featherlight accelerator control, otherwise the enormous torque available will cause the vehicle to bunny hop/leap 4-8 feet. Cannot realistically ‘stall’ the motor. Overload ? In quite extreme cases only, yes.
(4) An ideal substitute for your ute or SUV. See 1 & 3 above & 7 below.
(5) The range is determined by the capacity of the battery pack given the design chosen based on buyers requirements. Re-charging is no different to refueling. Statistically most journeys are a 30Km round trip or less. A daily 100Km each way trip is not an issue either, especially given one can likely recharge at destination, whilst working for the day, then return trip. Drive from Sydney to Bris Vegas ? Plan your stops or hire a hire car for this typically statistically rare event. You’ve saved a shitload(one unit of) by routinely commuting in your EV, spoil yourself a little. 🙂 (See 7)
(6) An EV can be purchased from 30K to 100Ks, depending on your requirements. This is how long is a piece of string fallacy.
(7) An EV has no : radiator, water pump, hoses/pipes, massive engine block nor cooling fan, cylinders/heads, camshaft, sparkplugs/leads, manifold, exhaust, catalytic converter, fuel pump or filter, oil sump, oil pump, starter motor, carburetor/fuel injection system, engine management system, regular ‘tuning’, replacement fluids (oil, antifreeze), etc. At its most elegant, merely needs an electric motor say 18-30Kg, a solid state motor controller, an automatic electric pump to maintain hydraulic pressure if required (Brakes), a shitload (one unit of) of heavy & moderate rating low resistance electrical cabling, & somewhere for the battery bank & battery management controller to sit, as well as a discrete onboard charger. Very few components requiring any servicing or routine replacement as for ICE. Typical operating cost of say $1.60 of electricity per 100Km. How much does 12Litres+/100KM cost compare for a medium ICE SUV ? Full EV purchase price could be recovered typically within 18 months to 3 years of purchase due to above ‘fuel’ savings & annual maintenance/servicing costs compared to ICE. After that it’s dramatically reduced annual expenses. Sweet.
That covers the ‘basics’.
PS In use no cabin noise or vibration. Properly designed the EV battery pack can be accessed when EV parked/garaged, & used as a standby or backup powersource for your domestic 240V AC residence re power failures, brown outs, outages. Portable power source for 4WD, camping/caravaning too. Moderate sized residential Solar Panel Installation ? Potentially recharge your EV most of the time for free(?). Bonus charging with Solar/Wind ? Totally Green, no pollution, from the EV operations or the re-charging(Solar/Wind).
Alcibiades, but Shorten hasn’t taken into account the lack of fuel excise…
OH NO, WAIT…
Forget we said that, because it would mean that we were a party of higher taxes…
No, no, not taxes, EXCISE…
Phew, it’s a bit confusing when you have such simplistic arguments.
🙂
Apologies for the wall of text, thought an informed practical explanation/comparison sans techspeak may be of some assist re common myths.
Love yer work.
Jesus I hope we dont have to wait till Snowy 9.0 to provide the power for the electric cars. Have never heard such an inane vacuous rant as if you have a go you’ll get a go. Straight from advertising 101 means as much as the failed mantra where the bloody hell are you. Morrison was fired from the tourist gig, manipulated his way into being elected by nefarious Unchristian means the same way he attained the top spot and will shortly realise that the accumulation of such dodgy deeds will eventually catch up with him and he and his party will be summarily dumped. I cannot wait.
Bronte Allan, did you read the article about the woman who drove her Tesla P75 around Australia in August/September 2018? Google it.
From “The Australian Financial Reviewl:
Remembering that franking credits themselves aren’t changing and the only change is that people who don’t pay income tax won’t be able to claim the tax paid by the company as a refund, it does seem strange that this should affect so many of the voters of affluent Kooyong. Remembering also that we were told that these refunds were going to people on the lowest taxable incomes, this does tend to accentuuate the fact that these are going to people with low taxable incomes rather than the poorest people as the Coalition likes to imply every time they talk of people on low taxable incomes. Not sure how many banks are really prepared to lend to a worker earning a mere %50,000 a year so that he or she can buy an investment property, but the government want us to infer this every time they point out that people with negatively geared properties don’t have high taxable incomes.
In other words, these people have worked hard to ensure that they pay no tax, so it’s outrageous that a government should refuse to give them taxpayers’ money back in return for all their creative accounting!
Lots of poor people, on franking credits, in Kooyong ?! A Hockeyism, as in Joe ? 🙂
Josh is in trouble, may well lose his supposed ‘safe’ Blue Ribbon seat. Such a shame given he’s been groomed as a future Lib leader.
Median age: 38
All private dwellings : 60,986
Average people per household : 2.6
Median weekly household income : $2,035
Median monthly mortgage repayments : $2,500
Median weekly rent : $401
Average motor vehicles per dwelling : 1.7
ABS Census Quickstats Kooyong Electorate
These morons are coming across more and more as irritating petulant children rather than the “adults” they claim to be.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/it-s-pink-batts-all-over-again-moderate-liberal-mps-join-pile-on-over-soviet-electric-car-policy-20190408-p51c25.html
That article is ridiculous Kronomex and it is coming from MPs who represent electorates who will KNOW what they are saying is ridiculous.
When our finance minister equates facilitating and incentivising the electric vehicle industry to forcing people to eat ice cream and brussel sprouts, we are in high farce territory.
The really great thing is that if any of these morons do fall over the line and get re-elected, they will no longer be in government. Think of the people who will no longer be ministers and rejoice.
Dave Sharma has turned out to be a real weirdo with VERY poor judgement. “I don’t want to see it become like the Soviet Union where we all have to buy a Trabant,”?????? Ummm….Dave……give it a rest. I really don’t think that will impress the voters in Wentworth.
@Alcibiades: Thank you for the tech speak free advertisement for electric vehicles (EVs). Obviously the future is housing with a solar panels capacity and batteries to provide home power, hot water and recharging for the EV. In fact, there is one household here that has already done this. We are planning to join the movement and your economic analysis is further support for this move.
Dutton – in dire straights (1.7% margin)
Abott – in diabolical trouble, in Warringah (NSW) (11.1% margin)
Frydenberg – In trouble, in Kooyong (VIC) (12.8% margin)
O’Dwyers replacement, Katie Allen – possible loss in Higgins (VIC) (10.0% margin)
J Bishop replacement, Celia Hammond – possible loss in Curtin (WA) (collapsing 20.7% margin)
Given the above supposedly ‘safe’ Coalition Blue Ribbon seats, excluding Dutts, wonder how badly the next seventeen ‘marginal’ Coalition Members are sweating bricks, on margins of 0.1% to 3.9% ? 🙂
PS Rob Oakeshott, Independent v Notionals, is slightly ahead in Cowper (NSW)
IT’S A BLOODY FICTIONAL TELEVISION SERIES FOR SHITS SAKE!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-09/game-of-thrones-who-is-the-worst-war-criminal-in-westeros/10981092?section=politics
Complete and utter absurdity and panic –
https://www.gamesradar.com/au/self-destructing-scripts-code-names-and-only-24-hours-to-rehearse-how-game-of-thrones-season-8-aims-to-keep-its-secrets/
I’ve never been able to get past page 28 of the first book in the series and only barely managed to make it through series 1 and then gave up three episodes into series 2. It’s all a load over overlown crap.
New England Cocky,
Was amongst the first 50 to obtain approval for rooftop grid-tie solar back in 2001. Paid for itself in less than 5 years. Subsequently expanded to a combination of on & off grid solar systems with a 16KWH battery bank, good enough for 16+ hrs outage/zero sun. All paid for by the subsequent credits/savings of the initial system. Essentially live off grid, yet part grid connected. Designed & built my own EV, with towbar, 11 years ago. It is integrated into my system & provides an additional 32KWH capacity capability when parked/garaged. The future is already here, for some time now.
Re EVs v ICE:
Operating costs ie fuel is an average of notional $1.60 electricity per 100km compared to $16.80+ unleaded per 100km. Note, if one can charge at destination on routine round trips, potentially for ‘free’ or longer battery life, and recharge from solar storage, then fuel cost (electricity) is $80c/100km, approaching 25c/100km or less in above setup.
Annual expenditure re ICE/fuel EV/charging statistically median ~$2,000/pa on a 30km daily commute + 60km additional/pw. EV equivalent re above setup same usage ~$200 worst case, or $100, or best case $30. Savings/costs are linearly proportional at higher average commutes. Ie. ICE 700Km/pw compared to EV ? ICE per annum ~$6,116 vs EV per annum ~$585 (worst case @$1.60/100km).
Annual servicing/parts/maintenance:
EVs have no significant annual or bi-annual servicing requirements. Basically battery monitoring, bi-annual wheel alignment/tyre rotation, grease & lubricant. No parts/oil/fluids/tuning required per annum. Minimum annual saving compared to ICE ~$1,500+/pa.
DC serial electric motor maintenance ? Every 100,000 km remove the casing cover, replace the brass bush brushes for ~$20-30, use a high pressure blower to blow out accumulated dust & dirt. Replace casing cover. Good for another 100,000Km.
An EV battery should be considered the practical equivalent of a petrol engine/motor assembly. They burn out/blow up/fail/wear-out. Replace every 7-10+ years for similar cost to a new petrol engine assembly, if charged/monitored correctly. Or just buy a newer, more efficient, longer range EV with all new ‘bling’.
Cheap second hand EV ? If the battery bank is old/tired, replace it & good to go for another ~7-10 years plus.
PS A significant component of the cost of commercially available EVs is limited sales in Oz & excessive utterly unecessary bling. Just as for Solar panels/system, higher sales = economy of scale = lower sales price (especially with minimal ‘bling’)
Kaye Lee,
I agree that it was ridiculous but it did leave me wondering if Mr. Koziol was a having slightly veiled dig at the Puerile Prince Precious’ mentioned in the article.
SBS have a funny video about the whole Winx thing