Leak from fuel pipeline adds to difficult week for PM

PRIME Minister Bill English was quick to offer the Government’s help when the details of the broken Marsden PointtoWiri pipeline were released yesterday.

But, in what could be a turning point for National in the last week of the election, it might be an offer coming too late.

From what has been released so far, the leak was identified on Thursday. A digger recovering kauri for export apparently scraped the pipe which runs through a wetland. The travelling public and investors were notified only yesterday — four days after the discovery.

Flights have been cancelled or delayed and Auckland International Airport is facing some logistical challenges.

It could be a week or two weeks, even, before the pipeline is repaired. That means nothing as by then, New Zealanders will have voted.

National is going to wear a lot of the blame for a rundown in infrastructure allowing this to happen.

The only way for National to play this is to remind voters a former Labour government was warned of the risk in 2005.

Social media was alive yesterday with all sorts of theories, none of them realistic, but all of them being repeated en masse.

Governmentcontrolled Air New Zealand warned five years ago in a submission that a hit to the pipeline could be a weak link.

In a submission to a government review of New Zealand’s oil security in 2010, the airline said a material disruption would result in a serious situation with implications for the aviation industry.

Air NZ indicated about 2000 passengers will be affected by the pipeline break.

The airline was rationing fuel, cancelling flights, instructing domestic flights to fuel up at Christchurch and Wellington and asking longdistance flights to stop and refuel on the way to New Zealand.

Elections can turn on the smallest of push points.

Any goodwill Mr English received from being photographed with the winning All Blacks team on Saturday night eroded once airline passengers started facing flight delays.

Apart from the flight delays, calls have started for an environmental impact report on the leak.

In Morrinsville, the home town of Labour leader Jacinda Ardern, signs concentrating on the looks of Ms Ardern will hardly help National’s cause.

The jet fuel shortage is unlikely to affect petrol and diesel supplies, but that will be small comfort.

Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett acted flippantly when asked about the issue, pointing to the party’s campaign using the National Party bus and not flying.

What was already shaping as a tough week for Mr English just got decidedly more difficult.