Life on the West Island - A dangerous addiction

West Islanders have developed an addiction which is threatening the national ecosystem, and perhaps even that of the entire world. It might be better to describe this as a disastrous love affair with huge gas-guzzling vehicles. This is highlighted in a recent government report showing that climate-wrecking transport carbon dioxide emissions are continuing their inexorable rise.

The Australian Financial Review reports that this rise is driven in part by the immense popularity of large diesel-powered utes and SUVs, which contributed to a 7.8 per cent annual increase in road transport diesel emissions. What this illustrates is that the West Island has a “big car” obsession, with far too many sports utility vehicles (SUVs) and utility trucks (utes).

This week, economist Jack Thrower reported that in the mid-1990s, about three in four new vehicle sales were ordinary cars, such as sedans and hatchbacks. Since then, the sales of bigger vehicles have exploded. SUVs have grown from one in 14 sales to more than half (56%) of all sales. Similarly, “other vehicles”, a category that mostly represents utes, have grown from one in six sales to more than one in four.

This trend has in large part been encouraged by successive federal governments, pushed along by the arguments of self-interested Nationals, who argue that tradespeople and farmers need them for work, and cashed up suburbanites demanding big vehicles to tow ever heavier boats and caravans. This has resulted in a ludicrous situation where governments subsidise polluting vehicles with the costly diesel fuel rebate, apparently in pursuit of the elusive “tradies” vote.

On any given day in a West Island city or town, you will find streets clogged with giant subsidised twin-cab utes carrying kids to playgroup or school or blocking up shopping centre car parking spaces. Thrower addresses arguments that these ever-larger vehicles are needed by tradies and farmers for work, or by families to pull caravans and boats:

Any attempts to reduce the growth in the “big car” fleet meet spurious cries about being “unfair to tradies” or “destroying the weekend”. But such claims don’t hold up.

In the statistics, utes are categorised as light commercial vehicles (LCVs), of which at least 75% are utes. Back in 1988 there was fewer than one (about 0.7) LCV for each tradie and farmer. From 1988 to 2024 the number of tradies and farmers grew by a third (32 per cent) while the number of LCVs more than tripled by 244%. This means today there are nearly two (1.9) LCVs for each tradie or farmer. When it comes to the weekend, we already have about five times as many SUVs as boat trailers or caravans.

Thrower goes on to examine the problems arising from this proliferation of big diesel-fuelled vehicles on the nation’s roads:

It’s not just that these vehicles are unnecessary, they’re actively harmful, causing big problems, most of them stemming from basic physics.

Firstly, big cars are much more dangerous because of their size and shape. Being hit by a SUV or ute increases the chances of pedestrian or cyclist fatality by 44% cent, or 82% for children. Because these vehicles are both more dangerous and more expensive, they also push up car insurance prices. Even for people not driving these cars, riskier roads mean higher insurance premiums.

The size of these vehicles means they are difficult to navigate on narrow streets and often do not fit into standard parking spots. This has led to governments and other bodies considering requiring bigger parking spots in shops and garages. This might seem like a minor change, but it incurs real costs. Larger parking spots mean car parks will either have fewer spots or be more sprawling and expensive, at the cost of other amenities such as parks.

Petrol – or diesel-fuelled – big cars are generally less fuel-efficient than smaller cars. This means burning more fossil fuels and emitting more carbon dioxide, which contributes to climate change. The turn towards electric vehicles does not negate this impact – barely any existing stock is electric and only about 5% of new ute and SUV sales in the past 12 months were EVs. Additionally, manufacturing big cars tends to emit more carbon simply because there are more materials to process.

As well, big cars emit larger amounts of particulates that lower air quality and worsen rates of respiratory illness. Finally, big cars more quickly wear down roads and their tyres and brakes, polluting the air with tiny particles that impact human health. One study showed that the brakes in large SUVs must work twice as hard as those in small compact cars.

Economists and scientists have pointed out that federal government policies have encouraged people to buy big harmful cars. In fact, some tax settings effectively give away public money to subsidise people to do so.

The luxury car tax includes a loophole that essentially exempts all utes, incentivising people to buy expensive utes (such as the gigantic American RAM 1500) rather than smaller vehicles. This loophole cost the 2023 budget $250 million and is growing.

Other incentives include instant asset write-offs. The Morrison government supercharged these tax giveaways during Covid-19 by raising the instant asset write-off to $150,000 and creating a loss carry-back tax offset, which led to a surge in ute sales. At the same time, by not taxing or regulating damages caused by big cars, governments enable those harms.

Basic economics suggests taxing things that society needs less of and subsidising what it needs more. Thrower concludes that instead of providing tax breaks for big cars, we should close loopholes and institute taxes and regulations to stop the growth in use of these dangerous and harmful vehicles.

It is clear that existing West Island government policies, aided by aggressive promotion from the motor industry, have created a dangerous national addiction to gas-guzzling diesel vehicles. Unless this is addressed, we have little hope of reaching our emissions reduction targets or saving the planet.