Turnbull government MPs ridicule claims of 'looming backbench revolt' over electric cars

A Liberal MP purportedly leading the charge against increased taxpayer support for electric cars says there is no looming backbench revolt, as other Liberals dismissed divisions over the issue as “nonsense".

Liberal MP Craig Kelly at Parliament House in Canberra.

Craig Kelly, the chair of the Coalition's energy and environment committee, played down ructions despite having warned that electric vehicles have a bigger carbon footprint than conventional cars - a view that has since been rubbished by the expert who created the website upon which the assertion was based.

Read the story by Nicole Hasham and Mark Kenny in today’s Melbourne Age - “Turnbull government MPs ridicule claims of 'looming backbench revolt' over electric cars.”

(It has been argued that only a child sees a project half completed and that is what has happened in the electric car debate - Craig Kelly argues that an electric car using power generated by a fossil-fuelled power station is more carbon intensive than existing traditional, existing cars, ignoring the fact that power drawn from solar plants would significantly reduce that carbon footprint. The electric car must be paired with solar or wind power - Robert McLean)

Klein encourages revolt - civil disobedience appears inevitable

Naomi Klein.

Civil disobedience has been discussed a few times Beneath the Wisteria and was thought something to be avoided, but now it seems inevitable.

That thought is reinforced by a story in the New Statesman by Naomi Klein headed "Naomi Klein: How science is telling us all to revolt", in which it is suggested we should engage in some sort of civil disobedience.

The insistence from many that the solution to the world’s troubles is to be found in further growth is both short-sighted and simply, wrong as unfettered growth is what has left us in this lamentable position.

Klein writes: “The fact that the business-as-usual pursuit of profits and growth is destabilising life on earth is no longer something we need to read about in scientific journals. There early signs are unfolding before our eyes.  And increasing numbers of us are responding accordingly: blockading fracking activity in Balcombe; interfering with Artic drilling preparations in Russian waters (at tremendous personal cost); taking tar sands operators to court for violating indigenous sovereignty; and countless other acts of resistance large and small”.