A stack of lies you could drive a Toyota HiLux through | Opinion

It’s been a big couple of weeks for liars and lying, with Anthony Albanese distracting people from his “my word is my bond” whopper by waving free money in their faces, and then Peter Dutton proving that, when it comes to lying, he’s right up there with the world’s worst.

Desperately opposing a sensible policy shift towards fuel efficiency standards that’s been begged for by right-minded non-lunatics for years – and doing so based on a richly mined history of Australian voter behaviour that shows the majority care less about the environment, and their kids’ futures, than they say they do – Dutton put on his baldest bald-faced liar face to pronounce that Australia already has “some of the highest efficiency standards in the world in terms of our vehicles”. 

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This it not a mild mistruth, a political white lie, or even as dumb as suggesting that Labor wanted to steal our weekends by promoting EVs, it is simply the opposite of the truth. It is akin to him saying that America has some of the best abortion and gun-control laws in the world, or that China has one of the fairest and most transparent systems of justice.

We are the only country in the civilised world  not to have a a fuel efficiency standard (some people like to point out that Russia doesn’t have one either, but invading your neighbours is about as civilised as drinking vodka out of a sock). And, as a result, new passenger cars in Australia use 40 per cent more fuel than those in the European Union. That’s a disturbing, upsetting number, and one the flies in the particularly bald face of Peter Dutton, but it doesn’t surprise me, personally, at all.

The one figure that did stand out amid all the malarkey this week – and as we’ll see, the car companies and their paid mouthpiece, the FCAI, also gave Dutton a run for his money –  is that our cars also use 20 per cent more fuel than equivalent vehicles in the United States. The home of big, dumb, ugly trucks, Winnebagos and idiots.

In fact, the US instituted its CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards in 1975, back when our politicians were busy doing what Australian ones do best – knifing their leaders.

I was going to ponder politicians for a moment and ask whether there is any other industry where lying is so warmly and widely rewarded. If you haven’t seen Scott Morrison’s impresario of imprecision about facts on the ABC’s Nemesis program you really must (I do honestly think he doesn’t say anything that isn’t a lie in the whole series, except for “Malcolm and I used to be friends”) – but then I remembered the existence of real estate agents. And some journalists who work After Dark. And car salesmen.

Speaking of the folks in that industry, boy, aren’t they welcoming the proposed fuel efficiency like a long, tall glass of bear vomit? It was a Mazda dealer that allowed Peter Dutton to wander around this week, rubbishing Labor’s plans to save everyone money on their fuel bills while saving the environment at least a tiny bit, and to drop his factless truth bombs about how good we are already and how much it’s all going to drive up the prices of our beloved utes. (He’s even dubbed it “Albo’s ute tax”, and you should buckle down for hearing that one more often).

Then there was the FCAI, sometimes described as the mouthpiece of Toyota, which is unkind, because it actually represents lots of other car companies that are also crapping their pants and spilling the excess all over their budget forecasts because Australia might dare to do what every other sensible country did years ago.

FCAI spokeshead Tony Weber came out swinging scary falsehoods, telling the very willing listeners at The Australian Financial Review that if we continued to buy utes and SUVs at our current rates until 2029, the poor, innocent car companies would face fines of up to $38 billion. 

Yes, BILLIONS.

And, because car companies have no margins at all to eat into – despite the fact that Australians often pay more for the same vehicles than people do overseas – those fines would have be passed on to the Aussie customers who want to buy new cars, presumably meaning that a Toyota HiLux will soon cost more than a house in Sydney

“These numbers illustrate the magnitude of the change and, if consumers don’t change their behaviour, what it will cost the entire car-buying public in the first five years,” Weber said.

Strangely, this position was in stark contrast with things the FCAI has said and predicted in the past, particularly about how many EVs and hybrids it thinks Australians will buy between now and 2029. 

Which led some to ask what the fuck the FCAI was on about.

Or, as Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen put it: “It’s up to the FCAI to explain the clear contradiction in their two positions. It’s disappointing that the car lobby has joined with Dutton to avoid bringing fuel-saving choices to Australians that they supply in 85 per cent of the global new car market and keeping ripping Australians off with less efficient vehicles.”

This caused Weber to admit that the $38bn figure was based on “a very simple analysis”.

“We’re not saying that [sales from] 2023 will be replicated. We’re just saying that if it was replicated, this is what the cost would be,” he said.

And also, we already predicted that it wouldn’t be replicated. And also, “simple analysis” is a very bad euphemism.

Look, I get it. If I was a company like Isuzu, selling a lot of highly polluting utes, and with no hybrids or EVs in my quiver to offset them, I’d be a bit skittish about the future, too. But I wouldn’t be able to say I didn’t see it coming.

There are a few other car companies in similar if less parlous positions in relation to the efficiency standards changes. 

Foolishly, however, I think lying to the Australian public about the difference between black and white – or diesel smoke and a zero-emissions vehicle – is not a good way to win the argument.