The two reasons why Government’s fuel crisis response is a pantomime
The Government fuel crisis response isn’t just slow — it’s theatre. As fuel stocks tighten and global supply risks escalate, the fuel crisis New Zealand is facing is being met with spin, not strategy.
This Government’s fuel crisis response is a pantomime for two reasons.
Trapped by their own political story
The first is a self-enforced political paralysis driven by their own election narrative. National’s argument is we are in the economic situation we are in because Labour overspent during a crisis. This means they will do as little as possible so as to not undermine their own election campaign.
The second reason the Government’s fuel crisis response is a pantomime is because they are freaking out and have no actual plan. All they are doing is hamming it up for the public before the sleepy hobbits of muddle NuZilind wake up to how fucked we really are.
The numbers say this could get much worse
Economist Shamubeel Eaqub rams this point home hard…
Falling fuel stocks raises a bigger question, what happens next?
Diesel stocks fell from 51.7 to 45.4 days of cover in the latest MBIE update. For me, the direction matters more than the level.
Days of cover is backward-looking. Those ships were contracted over three weeks ago. We have no visibility of what is being contracted now, what premiums importers are paying, or whether force majeure notices have been received.
South Korea, which supplies about half of our fuel, imposed mandatory export caps on 13 March 2026.
The pre-war crude pipeline into Korean and Singaporean refineries is running out. This is the crunch point. What comes after is what matters – not answered by the snapshot today.
…the market is refusing to acknowledge that this could be catastrophic because no one wants to try and price in a clusterfuck this large.
The market believes rational operators will get us out of this because it’s so self destructive, the problem is the market is making its decisions based on the belief Trump is a rational actor, when he clearly is not!
The Iranians are never handing over the Strait now. This is all on Trump and Israel who have locked us all into terrible economic pain for a bullshit military adventure that has massively screwed things up!
National are just praying this all somehow resolves itself rather than consider the enormity of what is coming.
There is no shortage of oil or diesel to worry about it is only those on the left who are panicking .
These CoCs are so insulated from reality. The only crisis they’ve had to deal with is being out of lamb shanks at the buffet table at Bellamys.
To quote a highly technical analysis of National’s response the fuel crisis from an economist.
“Do nothing ..do nothing…do nothing ..and then oh F**k.”
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2019031093/economist-disappointed-in-nz-s-fuel-crisis-response
Loving the “We” have 15 days of diesel, 20 days of petrol narrative.
Turns out even National and ACT talk like the dreaded “commies” when there’s a fuel crisis.
While the fuel companies and importers look at Willis and say, What’s this “we” white woman?
Off topic but please read the article in this week’s Listener to see the story about Moa Point and the story story of mismanagement.
This entire CoC is a pantomime. Everything they meddle with is never researched properly or even transparent, simply knee-jerked. Only when National et al grow up and stop playing the ‘blame game’ will they progress. This CoC has spent way more in two years than Labour spent in six, despite Labour dealing with a worldwide pandemic. This current gormless CoC has no plan A, or plan B, in fact no plan at all. They appear totally lost, so let’s help them out with advice. Throw in the towel, put us out if our misery, and stop acting like spoilt children. Even when the Strait opens it will take months for world economies to get back to the status quo. Have you prepared for this?