Politicians are being urged to adopt stronger electric vehicle incentives ahead of the election. 

Climate and energy advocacy group Rewiring Aotearoa is arguing that EVs are one of the most effective long-term solutions for rising transport and energy costs. 

They're promoting an EV Salary Boost proposal, which would allow workers to access EVs through pre-tax salary arrangements – similarly to already existing schemes in the UK and Australia. 

Policy and Government Relations Spokesperson Ngaio Neumegen told Kerre Woodham that even with the rising cost of power, it's still cheaper to run an EV than a car running on imported fuel. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

Politicians are being urged to adopt stronger electric vehicle incentives ahead of the election.&nbsp;
Climate and energy advocacy group Rewiring Aotearoa is arguing that EVs are one of the most effective long-term solutions for rising transport and energy costs.&nbsp;
They're promoting an EV Salary Boost proposal, which would allow workers to access EVs through pre-tax salary arrangements – similarly to already existing schemes in the UK and Australia.&nbsp;
Policy and Government Relations Spokesperson Ngaio Neumegen told Kerre Woodham that even with the rising cost of power, it's still cheaper to run an EV than a car running on imported fuel.&nbsp;
LISTEN ABOVE&nbsp;

Join Kerre Woodham one of New Zealand’s best loved personalities as she dishes up a bold, sharp and energetic show Monday to Friday 9am-12md on Newstalk ZB. News, opinion, analysis, lifestyle and entertainment – we’ve got your morning listening covered.

Kerre Woodham Mornings Podcast

Ngaio Neumegen: Rewiring Aotearoa Policy Spokesperson on their push for politicians to adopt an EV Salary Boost scheme

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/1b8f2e82-ab79-407a-b489-b4f80017e49a/transcript

It looks like EVs are having a hot girl summer. They first had their time to shine when the previous Labour Government brought in subsidies for New Zealanders to buy EVs. In July 2021, the very first month that the rebate scheme kicked in, overall EV sales increased by more than 200% depending on the specific brand and model. Pure electric and hybrid light vehicle new regos nearly quadrupled to 1,944 units in July '21, compared to just 521 the previous month. Look what happens when you give people free money – they use it. At the peak of the subsidy scheme, battery powered EV market share rose from less than 4% of new light vehicle registrations in January 2022 —so less than 4%— to just over 20% by December 2022. It was big.  

Conversely, when the National-led Coalition Government axed the clean car discount at the end of December '23, or to put it another way, asked the purchasers of cars to pay for them themselves rather than expecting a subsidy from the taxpayer, new EV sales sharply dropped from 20% of market share to less than 10%. Now though, we're seeing another surge in popularity of EVs, this time driven by buyers, not by free money, given the high price of fuel. EV regos rose sharply last month, up 174.1% on this time last year. 

Now Rewiring New Zealand wants to see either of the Chrisses, Luxon or Hipkins, offer an EV salary boost policy based on similar schemes in the UK and Australia. Rewiring NZ said petrol is the largest upward contributor to the inflation rate, and when we're looking at ways of easing the cost of living on households, EVs is one of the biggest ways to go. If you're not paying for petrol, then that's $150-odd in your pocket straight away. The EV salary boost is a policy that would let employees lease a new or used electric vehicle using pretax salary deductions, similar to Australia's scheme.  Lease costs, the vehicle, the insurance, and maintenance are deducted from an employee's gross before tax pay, so that lowers their taxable income.  

Rewiring Aotearoa, who's putting a very positive spin on it, says workers could save an average of $36 a week compared to a standard car loan, and then there's the petrol, and second hand market supply would improve because after the three to five year lease ends, the vehicles enter the second hand market and that makes it more affordable for other motorists who might not be eligible for the employee lease scheme. Do we have to pay for it? Yes, we do. Yes, we do. Proponents estimate the income tax reduction costs the Government roughly $5,000 per vehicle. 

But you know when politicians, and Chris Hipkins was specifically asked this when he was on with me between, they're asked how are you going to ease the cost of living? How are you going to make life easier for households who have to pay rates and insurance and mortgages or rents and food and petrol? Well, says Rewiring Aotearoa, Rewiring New Zealand, here's a way you could do it almost immediately. Reduce the upward pressure on inflation and ease the cost of buying petrol and the maintenance and the like on employees. Doesn't cover the self-employed and the small businesses, but then I guess you can claim back vehicle costs when you submit your tax forms at the end of the year, tax returns at the end of the year.   

What do you think of it as an idea? This was a question that was asked of Chris Hipkins: how? How will you ease the cost of living for your average household? He said public transport, capping public transport fares. What else did he say? I think that was it. Capping public transport fares. Rates were too hard, insurance was too hard, food was too hard. So this is a way of doing it. For those who took advantage of the Government's, the previous Labour Government's clean cars discount, you must be laughing all the way to your electric charge in the middle of town. How many of you have decided to go the EV way? You were on the fence, but then the price of fuel went astronomically high, and you thought to yourself, no, now's the time to do it.  

Is there more choice and more range? Just looking at the different utes and work vehicles available, more and more of them seem to be coming onto the market as hybrids or EVs. But then you also look at Ford, who's reporting billions of dollars in losses in their EV division. Many of them have shelved plans to make workhorses that operate on electric motors. Is there more range for you to have a look at when it comes to finding a workhorse for your business? And would this be something you'd be interested in? If your boss says to you, all right, well you won't get as much money in your pocket, but you will get brand new EV for the term of your employment. 

It looks like EVs are having a hot girl summer. They first had their time to shine when the previous Labour Government brought in subsidies for New Zealanders to buy EVs. In July 2021, the very first month that the rebate scheme kicked in, overall EV sales increased by more than 200% depending on the specific brand and model. Pure electric and hybrid light vehicle new regos nearly quadrupled to 1,944 units in July '21, compared to just 521 the previous month. Look what happens when you give people free money – they use it. At the peak of the subsidy scheme, battery powered EV market share rose from less than 4% of new light vehicle registrations in January 2022 —so less than 4%— to just over 20% by December 2022. It was big. &nbsp;
Conversely, when the National-led Coalition Government axed the clean car discount at the end of December '23, or to put it another way, asked the purchasers of cars to pay for them themselves rather than expecting a subsidy from the taxpayer, new EV sales sharply dropped from 20% of market share to less than 10%. Now though, we're seeing another surge in popularity of EVs, this time driven by buyers, not by free money, given the high price of fuel. EV regos rose sharply last month, up 174.1% on this time last year.&nbsp;
Now Rewiring New Zealand wants to see either of the Chrisses, Luxon or Hipkins, offer an EV salary boost policy based on similar schemes in the UK and Australia. Rewiring NZ said petrol is the largest upward contributor to the inflation rate, and when we're looking at ways of easing the cost of living on households, EVs is one of the biggest ways to go. If you're not paying for petrol, then that's $150-odd in your pocket straight away. The EV salary boost is a policy that would let employees lease a new or used electric vehicle using pretax salary deductions, similar to Australia's scheme. &nbsp;Lease costs, the vehicle, the insurance, and maintenance are deducted from an employee's gross before tax pay, so that lowers their taxable income. &nbsp;
Rewiring Aotearoa, who's putting a very positive spin on it, says workers could save an average of $36 a week compared to a standard car loan, and then there's the petrol, and second hand market supply would improve because after the three to five year lease ends, the vehicles enter the second hand market and that makes it more affordable for other motorists who might not be eligible for the employee lease scheme. Do we have to pay for it? Yes, we do. Yes, we do. Proponents estimate the income tax reduction costs the Government roughly $5,000 per vehicle.&nbsp;
But you know when politicians, and Chris Hipkins was specifically asked this when he was on with me between, they're asked how are you going to ease the cost of living? How are you going to make life easier for households who have to pay rates and insurance and mortgages or rents and food and petrol? Well, says Rewiring Aotearoa, Rewiring New Zealand, here's a way you could do it almost immediately. Reduce the upward pressure on inflation and ease the cost of buying petrol and the maintenance and the like on employees. Doesn't cover the self-employed and the small businesses, but then I guess you can claim back vehicle costs when you submit your tax forms at the end of the year, tax returns at the end of the year. &nbsp;&nbsp;
What do you think of it as an idea? This was a question that was asked of Chris Hipkins: how? How will you ease the cost of living for your average household? He said public transport, capping public transport fares. What else did he say? I think that was it. Capping public transport fares. Rates were too hard, insurance was too hard, food was too hard. So this is a way of doing it. For those who took advantage of the Government's, the previous Labour Government's clean cars discount, you must be laughing all the way to your electric charge in the middle of town. How many of you have decided to go the EV way? You were on the fence, but then the price of fuel went astronomically high, and you thought to yourself, no, now's the time to do it. &nbsp;
Is there more choice and more range? Just looking at the different utes and work vehicles available, more and more of them seem to be coming onto the market as hybrids or EVs. But then you also look at Ford, who's reporting billions of dollars in losses in their EV division. Many of them have shelved plans to make workhorses that operate on electric motors. Is there more range for you to have a look at when it comes to finding a workhorse for your business? And would this be something you'd be interested in? If your boss says to you, all right, well you won't get as much money in your pocket, but you will get brand new EV for the term of your employment.&nbsp;

Kerre Woodham: Are electric vehicles on the up again?

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/7ca39c38-0a1d-4b0b-9f2c-b4f80007c4cf/transcript

Elections at home and abroad may have a played a part in the latest rise in the number of people out of work. 

Unemployment's hit 5.7%, up from 5.6% three months ago. 

The unexpected rise has coincided with an increase in casual and fixed-term roles, and a move towards more part-time employment. 

Infometrics Principal Economist Brad Olsen told Kerre Woodham businesses appear to be holding off on making decisions. 

He says they want to see both what happens in our election, but also how the mid-terms affects the war in Iran and global fuel prices. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

Elections at home and abroad may have a played a part in the latest rise in the number of people out of work.&nbsp;
Unemployment's hit 5.7%, up from 5.6% three months ago.&nbsp;
The unexpected rise has coincided with an increase in casual and fixed-term roles, and a move towards more part-time employment.&nbsp;
Infometrics Principal Economist Brad Olsen told Kerre Woodham businesses appear to be holding off on making decisions.&nbsp;
He says they want to see both what happens in our election, but also how the mid-terms affects the war in Iran and global fuel prices.&nbsp;
LISTEN ABOVE&nbsp;

Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist on the unemployment rate rising to 5.7% in the September quarter

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/4326b26c-91ad-4ae2-ae63-b4f800030150/transcript

I know that there are people who think that being fat is indicative of moral weakness. You're a slave to the pleasures of the flesh if you're fat. You can't control your appetite. No self-control. Being greedy is an unattractive trait, in fact gluttony is right up there in the list of the seven deadly sins, all of which I seem to commit on the daily. And sure, if back in the day food was scarce, if you had to grow or gather your dinner, it was a precarious business. It was difficult to store food in times of plenty, hard to find food in winter, during famine, during difficult times. So anyone whose belly hung over their belt would have been looked at askance. You wouldn't have trusted him, or her for that matter. But times have changed and now we all have enough, at least in this country.  

But some of us don't stop when we reach enough. And because we're a little more sophisticated than we were in the 18th century, we know now that it's not a sign of moral weakness, moral corruption, but merely different bodies processing food differently and the brain playing a bigger part than the stomach when it comes to obesity. It makes sense surely to treat obesity differently. Rather than castigating people for their lack of self-control or for their poor decisions, you look at the brain and work on that.  

Obesity related illnesses cost us a fortune as a country. The direct costs are $2 billion a year, the indirect costs are around 7 billion a year. Surely if there's a way to keep people out of hospital, out of the healthcare system, we take it. Pharmac certainly thinks so. Pharmac's cardiovascular experts have recommended funding a weight loss drug for people with cardiovascular disease and a BMI of 27 or more as a high priority. Fat jabs are already used widely in New Zealand, but they're unfunded, meaning that patients have to cover the cost.  

In May, Pharmac added Wegovy, one of the fat jabs, to its list of medicine suitable for future funding specifically for weight loss, but this too remained unfunded. The most recent recommendation, which comes from the cardiovascular team, is a high level provisional outcome, so it doesn't reveal the reasons behind the recommendation, which are surely obvious to even those of us who haven't done six years at med school. And we're not certain how many New Zealanders would qualify for treatment if the drug was funded specifically for cardiovascular disease.  

According to Health New Zealand, about a third of New Zealanders over 15 were considered obese, giving New Zealand one of the highest adult obesity rates in the OECD. Cardiovascular disease is responsible for almost one in three deaths in New Zealand, and maintaining a healthy weight helps you manage cardiovascular risk. So we have a problem on the one hand, we have a way to solve it on the other hand. Why don't we get over the pursed lips and the moral judgment of 1762 and accept that the cost benefit ratio of funding Wegovy or something similar would save lives and save the country billions. It's a no brainer, isn't it?  

I would love to hear from you on this one. We've heard from people who have taken Wegovy before or the other fat jabs, whatever they are. It helps with the weight loss, it helps with appetite, it helps with nail biting, compulsive shopping, drinking, smoking. I've heard that from all of you, or not from all of you, from those of you who rang in talking about taking the jabs. Doesn't just help you with the weight loss, it helps with all sorts of things.  If we have a problem and we have a cure for the majority of people who take it, doesn't it make sense to invest in it and stop spending billions and billions of unnecessary dollars? 

I know that there are people who think that being fat is indicative of moral weakness. You're a slave to the pleasures of the flesh if you're fat. You can't control your appetite. No self-control. Being greedy is an unattractive trait, in fact gluttony is right up there in the list of the seven deadly sins, all of which I seem to commit on the daily. And sure, if back in the day food was scarce, if you had to grow or gather your dinner, it was a precarious business. It was difficult to store food in times of plenty, hard to find food in winter, during famine, during difficult times. So anyone whose belly hung over their belt would have been looked at askance. You wouldn't have trusted him, or her for that matter. But times have changed and now we all have enough, at least in this country. &nbsp;
But some of us don't stop when we reach enough. And because we're a little more sophisticated than we were in the 18th century, we know now that it's not a sign of moral weakness, moral corruption, but merely different bodies processing food differently and the brain playing a bigger part than the stomach when it comes to obesity. It makes sense surely to treat obesity differently. Rather than castigating people for their lack of self-control or for their poor decisions, you look at the brain and work on that. &nbsp;
Obesity related illnesses cost us a fortune as a country. The direct costs are $2 billion a year, the indirect costs are around 7 billion a year. Surely if there's a way to keep people out of hospital, out of the healthcare system, we take it. Pharmac certainly thinks so. Pharmac's cardiovascular experts have recommended funding a weight loss drug for people with cardiovascular disease and a BMI of 27 or more as a high priority. Fat jabs are already used widely in New Zealand, but they're unfunded, meaning that patients have to cover the cost. &nbsp;
In May, Pharmac added Wegovy, one of the fat jabs, to its list of medicine suitable for future funding specifically for weight loss, but this too remained unfunded. The most recent recommendation, which comes from the cardiovascular team, is a high level provisional outcome, so it doesn't reveal the reasons behind the recommendation, which are surely obvious to even those of us who haven't done six years at med school. And we're not certain how many New Zealanders would qualify for treatment if the drug was funded specifically for cardiovascular disease. &nbsp;
According to Health New Zealand, about a third of New Zealanders over 15 were considered obese, giving New Zealand one of the highest adult obesity rates in the OECD. Cardiovascular disease is responsible for almost one in three deaths in New Zealand, and maintaining a healthy weight helps you manage cardiovascular risk. So we have a problem on the one hand, we have a way to solve it on the other hand. Why don't we get over the pursed lips and the moral judgment of 1762 and accept that the cost benefit ratio of funding Wegovy or something similar would save lives and save the country billions. It's a no brainer, isn't it? &nbsp;
I would love to hear from you on this one. We've heard from people who have taken Wegovy before or the other fat jabs, whatever they are. It helps with the weight loss, it helps with appetite, it helps with nail biting, compulsive shopping, drinking, smoking. I've heard that from all of you, or not from all of you, from those of you who rang in talking about taking the jabs. Doesn't just help you with the weight loss, it helps with all sorts of things. &nbsp;If we have a problem and we have a cure for the majority of people who take it, doesn't it make sense to invest in it and stop spending billions and billions of unnecessary dollars?&nbsp;

Kerre Woodham: If we have a cure for a problem, why wouldn't we invest in it?

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/743d2d7c-63f0-4cf3-bf8b-b4f700040e25/transcript

Ngaio Neumegen: Rewiring Aotearoa Policy Spokesperson on their push for politicians to adopt an EV Salary Boost scheme

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