The new Cluden EV charging site outside Townsville, Queensland. Supplied
Note: This story has been updated to reflect a second vote:
A Queensland shire council threw out eight years of work to establish a public electric vehicle charging station, on the grounds of vague claims of human rights problems in battery manufacturing.
And then voted to keep that work going.
Last week the Livingstone Shire council voted to cancel a deal to install the Capricorn Coast’s first EV charger, and a followup meeting held on Thursday to reverse the decision initially failed to win over the required number of four councillors.
But a surprise second motion from the mayor reversing last week’s decision while also asking state and national local government associations to investigate renewables, got up.
“Council rescinds the motion adopted at the ordinary Council meeting on the 15th of April, that council suspends any further action on advancing electric vehicle charging station until further notice, as a result of concerns identified in recent media,” mayor Adam Belot said.
Ironically, between the two motions the councillors were told Evie Networks – the charger provider – had pulled out of the deal the day before due to the reputation risk “particularly with this site” and the “hefty tariff charges” imposed by local electricity network provider Ergon Energy.
On Thursday, the three councillors in favour of installing an EV charger pleaded with their colleagues to think of the community, rather than problems created in myriad global supply chains. They also pointed out the council could lose its eco-accreditation – gained on April 1 – and miss out on significant tourism revenue.
“If we do not have a charger installed, we have an extreme threat, I’ll just say that again, extreme threat of losing this accreditation at the next audit,” councillor Andrea Friend said at the meeting.
“In 2032 the Olympic Games will be upon us … these spectators and participants will be traveling by electric vehicles that will need a charger installed on the Capricorn coast so that we can entice their visitation to us.”
A representative from the Australian Electric Vehicle Association (AEVA) highlighted the risk to tourism to the region, as more and more people switch to EVs.
“I recently met a couple at the Rockhampton charger behind the City Council who were in a (BYD) Atto 3…. They had visited Yeppoon but had not been able to stay more than one night because they couldn’t find a charger here,” said AEVA member Arthur Hunt.
“I also am aware of a visitor who flew to Rockhampton from Victoria to visit family. He thought he’d do the right thing and he hired an EV at Rockhampton airport.
“Coming from Victoria, he thought he’d have plenty of chargers here. He got down here and found there weren’t any. He had to curtail his visit. Wasn’t able to visit the attractions that he wanted to visit, and had to drive back to Rockhampton airport.
“There are many tourists who bypass the Capricorn coast because there are no public chargers shown on the plug share app that they use to plan their trips.”
Councillor Rhodes Watson pointed out that if Belot was basing his about-face on the heavily-debunked Channel 7 News report on nickel manufacturing in Indonesia, the council now needed to examine all supply chains.
“You can’t just pick on EVs,” he said during the meeting.
“Mr Mayor, I ask you, if we don’t pass this today, that you put up a notice of motion to stop the purchase of all mobile phones, home, solar batteries, laptops, kids, toys and to remove battery scooters from their roads.
“Please, councillors, I ask you to vote to continue with the installation of the charger and work on other avenues to solve the world issues.”
A Plugshare map showing a ring of EV chargers around the Capricorn Coast.
The rejected motion, put forward by Friend, was followed by Belot’s version that also factored in asking both the Queensland and national local government associations to investigate the ethics of all renewables.
The meeting was standing room only for members of the public who loudly voiced their distress at the broadside on renewable energy and rejection of local chargers.
“Are petrol and diesel ethical environmental [industries]?” one member of the public called out.
With the deadline for submissions to the national conference in June now closed, that move means the council will need to wait until next year to put that motion in front of their peers.
The vote on Thursday means the deadline imposed by Evie to retain $320,000 in funding is no longer applies as that was set by Evie Networks so it could start planning for construction, but the council will stand to lose $4000 plus CPI in revenue a year for the next 15 years in license fees for the public land.
* This article has been updated to correct an error that the Livingstone shire council refused to rescind the decision to pause all EV charger installations on the Capricorn coast.
Rachel Williamson is a science and business journalist, who focuses on climate change-related health and environmental issues.
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View Comments
Queensland needs a new byline for their rego plates. The redneck state.
Reading the article was thinking Queensland really has an issue with a lot of rednecks running the place.
I heard there's a vibrant horse and cart community in Yeppoon! 😆
Please don' denigrate Yeppoon. We may have a coal loving Mayor but we also have a strong tourist industry, a strong environmental movement and a strong renewables base.
So please don’t tar all of Yeppoon with such a comment.
I live here and along with 20 odd supporters crowded into the Council chambers to support the motion to rescind the pausing of EV chargers and that was actually achieved.
Rachel got it wrong in the report.
Well done that man!!
Well done! respect to you and the other supporters.
"Evie Networks – the charger provider – had pulled out of the deal the day before due to the reputation risk “particularly with this site”.............
Mission accomplished!
Thank you linesmen, thank you ballboys!
I watched the program a couple of days ago and realised it was an Atlas Network production for Channel 7.
The program took advantage of every opportunity to describe how EVs are the only reason Indonesia, their population and Chinese businesses employ peasants to mine and refine nickel in the most destructive and deadly way possible because EV batteries need black nickel.
In the process they found (probably paid) workers and campaigners to agree the black nickel is for EV batteries for Australia whilst they probably have absolutely no idea where the nickel is used.
Other than the direct connection to EV batteries the story was essentially a criticism of Indonesia's inability to address the environmental damage caused by the companies operating in Indonesia. There were also a few short segments by Australians whose nickel mines shut down due to low nickel demand 3 years ago.
The response is:
Nickel is almost 90% used for steel, especially stainless steel, and a shrinking 10% used for NMC variants that rely on different and much more highly refined nickel than Indonesia mines.
Whilst the USA still uses NMC battery variants it is gradually shifting toward LFP and other battery types. The EU is moving more quickly to towards LFP it is still more commonly NMC. China is mostly LFP and more modern battery materials. 90% or more of all EVs in Australia use LFP batteries in 2025.
So of the black nickel referred to as being mined for EVs none is used in EV batteries. Of all nickel only 10% is used for EVs. Of the batteries being sold in Australia less than 10% use nickel and 0.001% of cars in Australia will want to charge an EV in such a backward place as Yeppoon seems to be.
Yeppoon is not a backward place, we may have a coal loving Mayor but we also have a strong tourist industry, a strong environmental movement and a strong renewables base.
So please don't tar all of Yeppoon with such a comment.
I live here and along with 20 odd supporters crowded into the Council chambers to support the motion to rescind the pausing of EV chargers and that was actually achieved.
Rachel got it wrong in the report.
I apologise for thinking Yeppoon seemed to be a backward place. I am thrilled that it seems not to be so bad. Congratulations as a participant amongst many in righting a wrong. I hope the rest of my comment was acceptable for you and many others who have contributed to a better outcome.
I think we can keep that shorter. Just "XXXX" will do. :-) BTW, I did write a polite email to the mayor to counter his arguments.
It's crazy. The spotlight story just wanted to get ratings. The nickel from those mines featured in the story does not get used for batteries. It gets used for Stainless steel and alloys. But a story of dirty nickel for stainless steel would not have got the ratings.
Channel Seven owner is Kerry Stokes.................
.......famous Climate Denier, LNP Backer, mate of Gina, funder of Ben Roberts-Smith.
A skid-mark on the underpants of history.
Higher latitudes are directly associated with higher intelligence in Anglo Saxons.
Inane comment on an important subject, you must live at lower latitudes.
I think more likely to be a riff on the old catchphrase about people who live in Queensland being out in the sun too long and getting their brains fried.
The issue is with elected officials either being poorly informed (for which there is no excuse) or lacking integrity. As some members of the public pointed out, the council position is hypocritical given the sketchy ethics of oil companies let alone all the other supply chains.
I must have missed that memo.
When did public officials get elected based on their intelligence or integrity? (Hello barnaby! et al)
Embarrassing and disgusting.
No doubt the Mayor and some of his colleagues will divest themselves of their mobile phones, laptops, in the interests of supporting a totally discredited report on 7? or maybe not and they are just anti EVs.
Our Councilor who has the environment portfolio made the comment he has an EV, a electric skate board, he also has a business teaching surfing, and said he now loves driving up the beach in his old smoking diesel troopy, go figure. He also said to me he had an electric bike, but the battery caught fire, he'd plugged in the wrong charger, haha.
Note to self - Never visit Livingstone Shire, even if I have enough charge to get there and then escape any redneck lynching mobs looking for the blood of EV drivers
We may have a coal loving Mayor but we also have a strong tourist industry, a strong environmental movement and a strong renewables base.
Yeppoon & the Capricorn Coast, is a lovely place to visit. Our caravan parks are full in winter, the days are full of sunshine and the nights are moderate.
I live here and along with 20 odd supporters crowded into the Council chambers to support the motion to rescind the pausing of EV chargers and that was actually achieved.
Rachel got it wrong in the report.
"...20 odd supporters..."
Indeed.
Jonty, the Council chambers are very small, only 10 seats for the gallery so the others had to stand and listen to the shite but we had many watching live on youtube.
He was using a play on words, ie the supporters were odd...
Hahaha!
It's a trick i learned from the wizard of id. Rodney rushes in and says 'sire, the peasants are revolting!' to which the king calmly replies, 'yes.'
The objecting Councillors probably have some hidden motives and agenda - I doubt that they are suddenly "concerned environmentalists" just because of a fossil-fuel funded hit story on 7, not when rampant Gas exploration is happening all around them.
They're obviously not interested in tourists with EVs, and so there's absolutely no reason to go there - totally their loss. Feel sorry for the councillors supporting the chargers though as it's not their fault.
Would love it to see Evie offer the same deal to the next shire and all the tourists with EVs flock there instead, then in a few years they'll be wondering why they had to fork out hundreds of thousands to put in a charger when they could have gotten it for free plus licensing fees.
You're assuming they might one day acknowledge their stupidity.
8 years and nothing but invincible ignorance.
Is this some kind of sick joke? Whether or not there are "vague claims of human rights problems in battery manufacturing", no decision of some local council in a remote place, north of Rockhampton, in Queensland is going to have any impact at all, on any such problems.
But a decision like this is only going to make global warming ssues worse. And I would have thought the weather in Queensland lately has been quite sufficiently "worse" enough, for any sane person in Queenland to be doing aveerything possible to combat climate change. Not do crazy horse stuff like this - just leave this kind of rubnish to Trump and his side kick Musk, in Washington DC.
I live here, went to the meeting as support for rescinding the original motion which was actually achieved. We do have a Climate Change denier, coal loving Mayor we are doing our best to get rid of him. Please don't judge us by our Mayor, his support base is all the cashed up coal miners who now live here.
So the people in the community voted him in yet the community shouldn't be judged by that?
Yes nick. It's called democracy and not everyone is in favour of it. The people who invented it abandoned it not long after, calling it a paralysing and unweildy encumbrance. [My words]
Democracy only works if the vast majority of the general public are intelligent and well informed. That doesn't even remotely describe the current state of the Australian population, unfortunately, and never has. Same as the US and most other nations. Humans prefer ignorance and/or false information over verified information if the ignorance/false information makes them feel better. Humans are still just apes with tech, less ape-like than, say, 200 years ago, but still mostly just apes.
True.
The smartest monkeys © c.moulding
Australian oil supplies have some dubious players, including repressive Middle East regimes and Russian oil laundered through third parties. What about children exploited to pick cocoa pods? Closer to home, what about water theft by large Queensland farms? So many issues for the council to tackle it's a wonder that they will have time to do council business!