Poey Heeds Government Message And Carries Fortnight's Worth Of Groceries Home From Dickson Shops

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

Senator David Pocock is doing his part to reduce the nation's thirst for fuel this week after opting to carry a fortnight's worth of groceries home instead of loading them into his maroon 1999 Hyundai Excel.

Over the weekend, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Energy Minister Chris Bowen asked Australians to "make like Nedd Brockmann" and run or walk to where they need to go or if they absolutely have to, take public transport.

This is in an effort to temper the demand on fuel, which has seen a snap increase due to panic buying and a perceived shortage of supply.

Speaking to The Advocate on the corner of Cowper and Davenport this morning in Dickson, Senator Pocock almost swore due to the physical nature of what he was trying to achieve.

"It's fricken heavy," he said.

"And trust me, I know a bit about lifting and carrying heavy things. Whether they be a Murrumbidgee River rock or an Argentinean lock, I'm an expert. And this is hard yakka, let me tell you,"

"But all for a good cause, I guess. I just wish I wasn't wearing jeans, Florsheim loafers and a no-iron polyester button up. Maybe next time, I'll take the Excel half way."

Our reporter then asked why he drives such a piece of shit car when he could obviously afford something becoming of a senator, something like a BMW 3-series or a Prado. Senator Pocock just laughed and lifted the groceries off the footpath with a grunt.

"I drive a 1999 Hyundai Excel and I reckon it's greener than your Tesla. Hear me out. Before a Model Y turns a single wheel, it's already carrying somewhere between 12 and 20 tonnes of embodied CO₂, that's the energy it took to mine the lithium, smelt the aluminium, manufacture the battery pack and ship the thing halfway around the world. The battery alone accounts for maybe five to eight tonnes of that. My Excel, on the other hand, paid its manufacturing debt 26 years ago. That energy is spent. Every kilometre I drive it now is just squeezing more use out of something that already exists, which is about the greenest thing you can do with anything. The car weighs under a tonne, it's got no rare earth metals in it, no battery chemistry, no software. Just a 1.5-litre four-cylinder engine, a gearbox, four wheels and zero ANCAP stars. When something breaks, I fix it with parts that cost less than it costs to restore the vision of one villager in Africa via the Ted Noff foundation. He was a kind man. Anyway, when your Model Y needs a new battery in ten years, that's another five tonnes of CO₂ and a bill that'd make your eyes water. And here's the bit nobody talks about. If you're charging your Tesla off the NSW grid, you're still burning a fair whack of coal. The operational gap between my little Excel and your EV isn't as wide as the brochure suggests. Obviously if you're doing 30,000 clicks per lap of the sun, the maths changes. The Tesla catches up eventually. But I'm not. I drive to town, I drive to the shops, I drive to work. Maybe 8,000 clicks a year. At that rate, the most environmentally responsible thing I can do is keep this thing alive until the wheels fall off, rather than send it to the wreckers so I can feel virtuous in a brand-new car that needed half the periodic table to build," he said.

"Yeah?"

More to come.