The Country interview with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
While Jacinda Ardern admits there aren't many viable electric utes out there for farmers at the moment, she is sticking by her Government's EV rebate scheme.
The scheme, announced on Monday, was designed to increase the number of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in the country, and aimed to reducegreenhouse gas emissions, in line with advice from the Climate Change Commission.
Under the scheme drivers who bought new cars from July 1 would be able to get taxpayer-funded rebates of almost $8700 for a new electric or plug-in hybrid car, and about $3500 for used cars.
These would be funded by fees based on emissions levels applied to new petrol cars up to $5875, and up to $2875 for imported used cars.
Farmers and tradespeople had expressed concern about the scheme, as there wasn't an appropriate EV vehicle on the market yet.
The rebate could force them to pay extra for the utes they relied on for their daily work.
The Government did consider a carve-out for farmers and tradespeople, but decided it was too difficult to implement, Ardern told The Country's Jamie Mackay at Fieldays today.
"One of the concerns we had in designing the policy was there aren't a lot of low emissions and no emissions alternatives. So we did look at whether or not we could design a carve-out specifically for those users - but it was very hard."
Adern wanted people to remember the scheme only applied to new vehicles and she hoped this would see manufactures offer more alternatives for Kiwi buyers.
Ardern was on her second day at Fieldays and one of 27 Labour MPs attending the agricultural event.
"We have elected representatives across a large part of our rural communities and this is a place for us to hear from people and just have really good yarns - so this is where we should be."
After the interview with Mackay the Prime Minister was off to get her Covid-19 vaccination.
Also in today's interview: Ardern talked about labour shortages in the primary sector, Auckland's cycle bridge and the Kiwi Harvest research launch at the Rabobank stand at Fieldays.
