This is BS. Visit any of the newly built suburbs on the edge of Melbourne. Furthermore there is minimal public transport in the new suburbs.
I have lived in a number of them, and as I said never been more than 1km from a supermarket, might have been an IGA at times, but still within walking distance. You are showing your entitlement and assuming things rather than actually knowing what happens in these suburbs, yes public transport is an issue, as I said earlier, a lack of government action. There is a lack of proper road systems to support these suburbs altogether, this is what failed attempts at providing cheap housing looks like. However unlike affluent suburbs where 1 family will use 1 dual cab/SUV to deliver 1 or 2 kids to school, in these suburbs a lot of families have a friend with a van that picks up the kids and delivers three or four families of children to school and various other activities. The schools have a better bussing systems that actual go where the kids are etc etc. This is a big difference between the West and North and say Melbournes inner East and Southern suburbs in that the mostly immigrant families do work together to pool resourses in spite of lacking government provisions.
Lucky you. for anyone with children, towing, trade, business or sports requirements a microcar doesn't cut it. The usual practice, if you can afford it, will be two cars, one large, one small. Electric is nice but only if you don't need range or are time poor. if you live or travel regularly in country areas, you need something that can take a bull bar to survive the inevitable Kangaroo and Deer collisions.
So before all these micro monster trucks appeared how did you tow or conduct business? Has business only been occurring since the Toyota Hilux was invented? Funny note, my mate a tradie owned a UTE, had to continuously borrow his dads large VAN because the ute wasn't big enough to carry a lot of trade items (and he didn't want to get his ute damaged).
I've driven all over the country in Sedans and Hatches, the trick to not hitting roos and other natives, DON'T DRIVE AT NIGHT. If you think the modern excuse for a bullbar will save you from a horse, cow or camel or even large roo on the road if you hit it at speed you are in lala land. They are low set, will promote rollover, they just take the legs from the animal now and throw it into the windscreen. That's because your bullbars have to be designed to minimise harm to pedestrians. There's a good dashcam of a Ford Ranger hitting a cow and rolling (or hitting anything and rolling).
The mini monster trucks are lifestyle vehicles and possibly cheap mine site rovers, although a Landcruiser has always done the job better and offers better reliability etc.
Sure, and the UK is a tiny country with a high population density that makes it economic. It also has a larger manufacturing base to support such infrastructure projects.
We just signed up $200billion for military projects, switching to gas electricity would cost less than $10B in Victoria, the 'affordability' argument is rubbish.