A recent social media post from the Prime Minister summed up the sense of unease that we have a government that is not fit for purpose.
Christopher Luxon posted to Instagram a message that was no doubt supposed to be reassuring at a time of international crisis and economic insecurity.
His statement said that ‘‘New Zealand has good holdings of fuel’’. He also made the startling claim that ‘‘we are in the best position we have been in years to deal with a shock like this’’.
‘‘We live in an increasingly unstable world, and speed bumps in the road are real,’’ the nation’s leader burbled on. It was embarrassing stuff.
The Iran war is spiralling out of control and no-one knows where it will end. The President of the United States is clearly out of control.
Luxon’s bumbling press conference on Iran showed someone out of their depth. It was so bad he was later described by right-wing commentator Matthew Hooton as a national security risk.
The problem is not Luxon’s ‘‘speed bumps.’’ Far from speed bumps, the New Zealand economy had already ground to a halt before the war even happened. The majority of our people are struggling.
The problem is that the world’s key oil producing region is in flames. The problem is that for a generation, irresponsible political leaders have ripped up our national resilience and security in favour of awarding tax cuts to, let’s face it, themselves.
Successive governments prioritised narrow market ‘‘efficiency’’ over strategic resilience, and we are now uniquely vulnerable.
Our fuel security is hanging by a thread. Here are the facts the Prime Minister won’t tell you about the potential threats.
A significant portion of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz. This chokepoint has become a target. If the Strait remains closed or even contested, global oil prices will not just rise, they will skyrocket, and supply lines to the South Pacific will be the first to be deprioritised by multinational oil majors.
We no longer have the Marsden Point refinery thanks to the corporate multinationals who shut it down. We are now at the mercy of just-in-time shipping schedules in a world where shipping lanes are increasingly unsafe.
New Zealand’s on-shore reserves are insufficient for a prolonged global disruption. We rely on ‘‘tickets’’ (contracts for oil held offshore), which are worthless if tankers cannot physically reach our shores during a conflict.
We have no New Zealand-flagged tankers any more. We are relying on foreign-owned vessels that have zero loyalty to our national interest.
If war makes the routes to us high risk, those overseas ships will be diverted to more profitable or safer routes, leaving us stranded.
Worst of all is the government’s abandonment of any effort to move towards renewable energy resilience.
This is part of a broader pattern of shallow leadership. It lies behind what has been described as our nation’s ‘‘managed decline.’’
In the Prime Minister’s disastrous Iran War press conference, he spoke of ‘‘monitoring’’ the situation while offering no concrete plan for how New Zealanders will get to work or how farmers will run their tractors if the pumps run dry.
This failure of foresight draws a painful parallel to Nicola Willis’ ferry fiasco. This was a short-sighted decision that ignored the strategic necessity of a reliable link between the North and South Islands. Now, we are left with ageing, breakdown-prone ships and a solution that will likely cost more and deliver less.
Whether it is the Cook Strait or the Strait of Hormuz, this government’s strategy is the same: ignore the long-term risk, cancel the investment and hope for the best.
People must have security in their jobs, their homes and their infrastructure. The Alliance proposes a radical shift in priority.
The Alliance supports the Maritime Union’s call for New Zealand-flagged and crewed tankers, and the investigation of reopening or replacing refining capacity.
We would bring strategic transport, energy and infrastructure assets back into public ownership and create ‘‘KiwiWorks’’, a Ministry of Works for the 21st century, to fix our crumbling infrastructure and get rid of ticket-clipping multinationals.
Most urgently, we must break our reliance on fossil fuels, for the climate and for our security. This means massive investment in electric rail, coastal shipping and regional and urban public transport links.
As a first step during the current fuel crisis, we propose free public transport in our towns and cities.
To pay for this resilience, we need a progressive tax system. While the coalition protects the 0.2% of big donors who fund their campaigns, the Alliance proposes a Financial Transactions Tax, Wealth Tax, and a Capital Gains Tax to fund the infrastructure New Zealand needs.
Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis are living in a world that no longer exists, a world of stable markets and cheap, easy global trade.
That world was always a fantasy and it has ended with a resounding bang with war in the Middle East and the accelerating impacts of climate catastrophe.
This government is unsuited to leadership in the new world they find themselves in. They are managers of decline, trying to protect their own way of life, not leaders of a nation.
New Zealanders deserve a government that is honest about the risks we face and courageous enough to invest in our collective future. The Alliance is ready to make those choices.
Everything is not OK, but it could be — if we start putting people and our national resilience first.
- Victor Billot is leader of the Alliance Party.
