Federal Parliament EV charging online and soon to be Canberra's biggest car charging station

Parliament's Presiding Officers, the Speaker of the House of Representatives Milton Dick and Senate president Sue Lines on Monday symbolically did the "first charge" with one of 10 public EV chargers, out of an eventual 58 in the building. They are sited in the upper section of the car park close to main building's entrance.

There will be a charge to use the 7kW and 22kW chargers which will be available on the Exploren public charging network. Two of the chargers have been reserved for EV with accessible requirements. Parliamentary officials have also outlined that the remaining 48 EV chargers are expected to be installed in the Ministerial, Senate and House of Representatives car parks in the coming months.

The Presiding Officers have, as a "big priority", an aim to make the Australian parliament one of the greenest and cleanest in the world.

"It's important that the Parliament leads by example, whether that be reducing our waste, whether that be using energy-efficient lighting, whether it be using all the technologies that we have," Mr Dick told reporters. "This is just one part of making the Parliament of Australia, the cleanest and greenest it can be.

"It's a big priority for me as Speaker and the President. But I would like to see that we are leading by example. From little things, big things grow.

"And I'm hopeful here that the example of Parliament House will be an example for other Parliament's across Australia, businesses and community as well."

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Following through on leading by example, Mr Dick said he does not have an EV but told ACM, publisher of this masthead, he was "looking at the options very closely now that we've got all of this new technology here at Parliament House".

Senator Lines revealed she signed up for an MG EV three years ago.

"I'm now on my second MG so I want to create that second-hand market to make EVs even more accessible and I have a Kona in Western Australia which I'm very happy with. Sorry, Tesla!" she said, to laughs.

The Parliament House charging project has been undertaken in partnership with local energy provider ActewAGL. The ACT government has a target of achieving at least 180 public chargers online by 2025. More than 100 have already been installed in the ACT and ActewAGL is contracted to install a further 100 across the next 12 months.

Parliament House is one of the most visited buildings in Australia with more than 800,000 annual visitors, while the ACT has become a national leader in electric vehicle take-up.