Friday, 11 April 2025
- The Coalition’s plan to wind back pollution standards is a step backwards
- This move reduces choice for farmers and increases vehicle pollution
- Strong, enforceable standards would give Australian farmers more choice: access to cleaner, more efficient vehicles already available overseas.
Farmers for Climate Action (FCA), which represents more than 8400 farmers across Australia, is disappointed by the Coalition’s idea to take us backwards by scrapping penalties for car companies breaking new vehicle pollution standards and reducing farmer choice in the vehicle market.
The National Vehicle Efficiency Standard, set to take effect in July, places a ceiling on emissions from new vehicles sold in Australia. FCA welcomed the original policy as a long-overdue move to align Australia with global standards, and strongly supported the standard’s enforcement mechanism, which would hold car makers accountable for selling high-polluting vehicles.
FCA CEO Natalie Collard said scrapping vehicle pollution standards would again see Australia become a dumping ground for the most polluting vehicles and reduce farmers’ choice to buy cleaner vehicles..
“Farmers have learned the hard way that voluntary codes without enforcement mechanisms often fail to protect those at the beginning of the value chain.” Ms Collard said.
“The Coalition has done such great work on calling out the failures of voluntary codes in the big supermarket space, so we’re confused as to why they’re effectively offering a voluntary code to the big car makers on pollution.
“Australian farmers deserve the choice of vehicles we see in New Zealand and the US – petrol, diesel, hybrid or electric.
“Why would we team up with Vladimir Putin’s Russia as the only countries which don’t have decent vehicle pollution laws? Electric vehicles allow farmers to save on fuel costs by using energy they create themselves – let’s not deny them this choice.”
FCA member and fifth generation farmer Peter Stray penned a letter to the federal government in support of the standards last year. “I am writing to urge you to make our standards strong and well designed,” Mr Stray wrote. “We need them to be competitive and effective so Australian farmers can get our hands on cleaner utes and cars that are cheaper to run.”
“Now, vehicles like the Ford F150 Lightning, the Tesla Cybertruck, and the Rivian R1T — all powerful, clean options suitable for farm work — could finally become accessible here,” said Ms Collard. “It’s a gut punch to see these leaders wanting to remove these choices from the table.”
FCA supports cleaner air, lower fuel costs, and greater vehicle choice for rural Australians.
