The centre-right government of New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon voted this week to overturn the previous Jacinda Ardern-led administration’s Starmeresque prohibition on new offshore oil and gas exploration.
The earlier ban, enacted in 2018, was a major part of Ardern’s idealistic plan to shepherd the country of five million into a bright and limitless ‘clean, green and sustainable’ carbon-free future built on renewables rather than fossil fuel. It also threatened to shut out the nation’s lights.
Ardern found herself accused of virtue-signalling on a particularly grand scale
At the very least, critics warned at the time, it would likely lead to a future of economic instability – all the more so because any replacement solar, wind and battery storage might not come on track fast enough to make up for dwindling gas fields. Ardern found herself accused of virtue-signalling on a particularly grand scale.
That criticism appeared to have been borne out in New Zealand after companies such as the energy supplier Genesis Energy were subsequently forced to import coal – which has higher emissions – and the spectre loomed larger of hitherto unimaginable blackouts in the near term.
In May, the national grid operator Transpower said that, as a consequence of the policy, the country’s gas fields were dropping much faster than expected, New Zealand was now at risk of experiencing electricity outages as early as 2026. In the meantime, electricity prices have surged by more than 10 per cent.
Among the most vocal critics of Ardern’s ban was not a member of the conservative opposition National party, but a maverick member of her own cabinet, Shane Jones.
Jones, a roly-poly figure with a reputation for breaking ranks with his Labour party on ‘woke’ issues, subsequently left for a new role as deputy leader of the populist New Zealand First, which has since become a junior coalition party in Luxon’s conservative government elected to office in 2023. He now serves as the country’s resources minister.
The new legislation he helped author was meant to be one of the new government’s first items of legislative business, but parliamentary glitches saw it shelved until yesterday’s vote.
What Jones describes as Ardern’s ‘unwieldly’ environmental vision for the South Sea has drawn obvious comparisons with Sir Keir Starmer’s one for the North Sea – but the two situations have their differences. Unlike New Zealand, the UK is connected to an international grid and has access to nuclear power. The Kiwis have none of those advantages.
Nevertheless, the binning of Ardern’s flagship policy was opposed by all three of New Zealand’s opposition parties, in particular Sir Keir’s Labour counterparts who first ushered in the 2018 ban.
Labour’s energy and resources spokeswoman, Megan Woods, said upending the ban was a ‘very potent symbol’ of a dysfunctional government ‘out of touch with ordinary New Zealanders and more intent at doing the bidding of multinational oil and gas companies.’
Yet even supporters of the turnaround acknowledge that those companies may be slow to return to a local market whose policies could yet switch again should Labour regain office at next year’s general election.
In a statement on Thursday, Jones reiterated that the earlier policy had always been ‘ill-fated’ and had ‘exacerbated shortages in our domestic gas supply by obliterating new investment in the exploration and development needed to meet our future gas needs.’
New Zealand’s volte-face comes amid growing criticism of Keir Starmer’s North Sea shutdown, with US President Donald Trump saying this week that Britain was wasting a ‘treasure chest’ of oil and gas
In an earlier interview with this writer in his parliamentary office, Jones said he welcomed the American administration’s international influence in putting paid to ‘shallow juvenile thinking’ around environmental adventurism.
‘I’m hoping that Trump’s influence will permeate,’ he said.
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