Nissan boss frustrated with Australian Government

Nissan Australia boss Richard Emery has labelled industry dealings with the government as “amateur hour”.

“My attitude is the government, not just politicians, but government bureaucracy doesn’t understand our industry or the complexity of opportunity for them to influence how people buy cars, the age of our car park, the efficiency of our car park – they take a very shallow view,” Emery told CarAdvice.

“Ours is a complex business, with huge corporations globally, that works with governments around the world. It’s somewhat amateur hour when our industry deals with the government on industry matters.”

That is particularly the case with a lack of support for electric vehicle infrastructure.

“I’d like to have a far more sophisticated conversation with the politicians and bureaucracy about what’s possible,” he says.

“There’s now talk around CO2 limits and CO2 targets for new cars and that’s great. That’s a good thing to do, and many countries are doing it and can react to that – as long as we are given the right amount of time to do so,” says Emery.

“If we targeted 10% of sales being hybrid

of electric cars each year, that would do as much as everything else. My quick answer is no, they’re not doing enough to support what we can do about reducing CO2.”