Australia is urging the world to electrify, but its own freight system remains overwhelmingly dependent on imported diesel when electric trucks could cut emissions, strengthen fuel security and lower costs.

Chris Bowen is right to preach electrification to the world. In Bonn this week, as COP31’s president of negotiations, he threw Australia’s weight behind the summit’s flagship target: lifting electricity from just over 20 per cent of global final energy demand to 35 per cent by 2035. “Electrification reduces the need for fossil fuels,” the energy minister said. “I see them as different sides of the same coin.”

But congregations notice what the preacher practises, and what is idling in Australia’s own truck yard is hard to miss. In the May Budget, the government found $14.8 billion to secure, store and subsidise liquid fuel and just $40.5 million to electrify Australia Post’s fleet.

Fewer than 400 electric trucks were sold here last year, just 0.7 per cent of the market. In China, one in five new trucks is electric.

Germany is at seven per cent. Britain manages three times our rate. For a minister about to spend five months persuading Canada, the United Kingdom and South Korea to join an electrification coalition, Australia’s lagging policy framework is an unnecessary credibility........

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