Petrol car import ban to cost jobs

Tens of thousands of automotive jobs will be lost if a Climate Change Commission recommendation to ban petrol and diesel car imports goes ahead, a mechanic says.

On Wednesday, the commission released its final advice to the Government on how to slash New Zealand’s carbon emissions. Included was a recommendation to ban petrol and diesel car imports, ideally by 2030 – but no later than 2035.

This would mean there would be 900 to 2300 fewer mechanics in 2035 compared to the 17,700 there were in 2018, it said. The job loss figure was likely an overestimate, it said.

Mechanics would be impacted by electric vehicle (EV) uptake and a shift to more walking, cycling and public transport, it said.

Craig Draper, who has owned Auckland’s Fredco Motors since the mid 1990s, said the commission’s jobs impact estimate didn’t take into account all the support industries for petrol and diesel cars such as parts suppliers and petrol stations.

‘‘It’s not 2000 jobs, it’s tens of thousands of jobs,’’ Draper said.

He believed New Zealand’s transition to an EV fleet was inevitable, and apprentice mechanics would be ‘‘foolhardy’’ if they didn’t train in EV servicing.

‘‘The whole landscape will change without a doubt. Motor mechanics as we know it will literally cease to exist.’’

Compared to petrol and diesel cars EVS had few moving parts, suffered less wear and tear and required less servicing, he said.

The Climate Change Commission said mechanics were already up-skilling as cars became more advanced, and this would need to continue.

There was also likely to be new jobs in refurbishing and recycling batteries and converting existing vehicles to electric, it said.

The Motor Trade Association advocacy and strategy manager Greig Epps said it was difficult to predict what a future workforce might look like, and the commission itself acknowledged it used simplistic assumptions.

New Zealand had 15 years to get systems in place and start training people to become specialised in skills needed to support the transition to EVS, he said.

‘‘We want to make sure we’re training now to make sure the industry has the skills to maintain the fleet that’s on the road.’’

He said there would still need to be mechanics to service the ‘‘2 million or more’’ internal combustion engines that would be on New Zealand’s roads in 2035.

The cost to taxpayers of decommissioning the Tui oil field off Taranaki has more than doubled to $394 million, Energy Minister Megan Woods has confirmed.

But Woods told a select committee yesterday that she was determined the situation would not be repeated.

Malaysian-owned firm Tamarind Taranaki bought the Tui field when it was towards the end of its life in 2017 to extract the remaining oil from it, at the same time taking on the responsibility for decommissioning.