Not the welloiled machine
Nobody can say the Prime Minister isn’t serious about clean energy – she’s driving an electric car around Auckland – but yet again her Government is fighting fires in regional New Zealand because it got its delivery all wrong.
That expression ‘‘too many cooks spoil the broth’’ seems to be increasingly more fitting when it comes to the Labour/NZ First/ Greens government, as all three parties continually butt heads over the best recipe for running the country.
NZ First voters will be wondering what they signed up to after three recently announced policies resulted in a fairly sizeable kicking for regional Kiwis.
First it was taking money out of state highway construction in the regions to pay for rapid rail in Auckland.
Then it was winding down taxpayer subsidies for irrigation schemes and on Thursday Taranaki woke up wondering what it had done so wrong that meant future offshore oil and gas exploration permits were on the scrap heap.
Full disclaimer: I’m a born and bred ‘Naki girl (my parents were in the white gold business) but living in Opunake you come pretty familiar with the darkest of nights being constantly lit up by the flames at Maui burning gas 24/7.
That black and white gold is all that keeps Taranaki going and when there’s a drop in price or supply in one or the other the whole region suffers together.
There’s no argument that oil and gas exploration isn’t the answer to a sustainable future and transitioning to renewable energy is a given, but if you decide to mess around with one, you sure as hell need a good plan for the other.
And that’s where the Government got it wrong – the messaging about why New Zealand needs to do its bit by moving away from oil and gas exploration was fine, but the explanation of what it was being replaced with was non-existent.
Business and local government leaders in Taranaki want to lead the way on renewable energy when the time comes, but there’s a reason why New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom said the Government’s announcement was a ‘‘kick in the guts’’.
Wanting to lead the way on the next big technology is one thing, but having a plan is another.
Yes the Government probably has about 30 years to work that out, but that’s not the point.
Taking a significant step like this requires a plan and that’s something Jacinda Ardern has up until this point been very good at. She understands optics and messaging and did a pretty decent job of both in the first 100 days.
But now that she’s announcing policies where she’s had to sit around the negotiating table with NZ First leader Winston Peters and Greens co-leader James Shaw both fighting to keep their own party relevant, the wheels are starting to fall off.
It’s understood the initial plan was to deliver Thursday’s announcement in Taranaki. For whatever reason that plan went out the back window and Ardern, along with Shaw, Energy Minister Megan Woods and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones, fronted media at Parliament with the news.
For about five seconds it looked like Jones wasn’t going to front (I mean who would blame him) until he wandered into the press conference a few steps behind the other three.
This is the self-professed ‘‘Champion’’ and ‘‘First Citizen’’ of the regions who is pro-industry and only a few years ago was quoted saying: ‘‘Protesters need to bear in mind we are buying oil out of the Gulf of Mexico and other farflung places when we should be focusing on making an industry in our own country’’.
That’s some big dead rats being swallowed.
Jones then went with his colleagues up to Victoria University where the announcement was delivered to students lined up to get their selfie with Ardern.
And where was National Party leader Simon Bridges? In New Plymouth of course for a preplanned speech at a business conference. The timing couldn’t have been better.
Ardern and Jones were at a university with a bunch of students not too directly affected by the policy, while Bridges was visiting Fitzroy Engineering in New Plymouth and talking to industry leaders livid they hadn’t been consulted.
Cries from the industry that they didn’t know it was coming are a bit of a laugh after the whole announcement was made earlier than anticipated because of how many people it had leaked to.
The point oil and gas leaders are trying to make is they weren’t officially consulted.
That’s when the scrambling kicked in and Ardern got on the phone to her trusted senior Minister Andrew Little and presumably said something along the lines of, ‘‘mate, we’ve got a problem and I’m leaving the country for a couple of weeks and Jones doesn’t want to go to New Plymouth, so do you think you could pop up there? Thanks’’.
Talk about drawing the short straw.
Ardern has promised to visit Taranaki when she returns from her trip to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in a couple of weeks.
NZ First deputy leader Fletcher Tabuteau will front business leaders in New Plymouth today.
He was there with Jones a week ago when they delivered the Taranaki regional economic development action plan.
Tabuteau and Jones both maintained they had signalled the transition process during their talks with leaders.
Woods says she spoke about the Government’s plans at a conference and Ardern herself signalled change was coming when she went out on to the Parliament forecourt last month and personally received a Greenpeace petition calling for an end to oil exploration.
But Ardern softened her language after that symbolic gesture and that would have left many with the impression any significant change wasn’t happening anytime soon.
The industry is being a bit disingenuous suggesting about 11,000 jobs will be affected, the reality is it’s more like 4000.
While none of those jobs will disappear today or tomorrow, they will be affected in the long term and once the regions start crying out it’s Jones’ $1 billion provincial growth fund that’s going to be drawn on. If the policies rolled out continue to hit the provinces, Jones will find it’s much easier to spend $1b than he first thought – just perhaps not in the way he initially intended.