OPINION: NZ Fuel Crisis: How National And Labour BOTH Failed Us

We didn't buy the insurance. Now the car's crashed and we're scrambling to make the call.

That's where New Zealand sits right now — exposed, vulnerable, and paying for decisions that both major parties made when they had the chance to protect us. The paper trail is brutal. And it's not up for debate anymore.

Watch the full episode here:

Labour kicked the can, National finished the job

After Marsden Point refinery ceased operations in April 2022, Cabinet knew 21 days of diesel reserves wasn't enough. Officials moved. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment issued proposals. The plan was real: an extra seven-day public reserve, 70 million litres of diesel — a buffer for exactly the kind of crisis we're in now.

Then nothing happened. Labour failed to fund it. They kicked the can down the road and left it sitting there when they lost the 2023 election.

But this government also had their chance. They were handed the hospital pass. They talked big about resilience. They picked up the same plan, read the same warnings, and then walked away from it. Shane Jones signed the cabinet paper. Too expensive. Scrap it. The price? $84 million.

Here's the killer line, the one that now reads like a warning ignored: "Cancelling the reserve would leave New Zealand vulnerable to a diesel disruption until at least 2028."

They knew. They wrote it down. And they did it anyway.

That same diesel reserve would now cost about double. The "too expensive" decision looks like a bargain now, doesn't it? And we're scrambling without the buffer we were explicitly warned we needed.

We had options at Marsden Point — and ignored them

It gets worse. After killing the plan, the government paid consultants to tell them exactly the same thing: we'll run short in a serious disruption. So what did ministers do? They pushed the problem onto fuel companies. Build your own reserves. Deadline? Not now. Not urgent. Kick the can at every chance.

Then there's Marsden Point itself. We were told nothing could be done. That's not quite true. Officials confirmed the refinery could have been kept as emergency capacity — not efficient, not pretty, but in a crisis it would run indefinitely. Enough to keep ambulances moving, food on the shelves. That option existed. It was ignored.

Even now, some tanks at Marsden Point could be brought back online within months. Tens of millions of litres of storage, sitting right there. We were told they're rusting out. Some are. But not all. Again, the option was not taken.

And now we hit the absurdity: the government is quietly preparing to tap emergency fuel stored offshore in the UK, US, and Japan. Think about that. We didn't build storage here. So now we may import emergency fuel with nowhere to put it. One option is parking a tanker off Marsden Point as floating storage. A floating fuel tank — because we didn't build one on land.

You can't make this stuff up.

The contradiction at the heart of government messaging

Ministers say everything's fine. Fuel companies say there's no immediate issue. But at exactly the same time, those same ministers are preparing emergency reserves, modelling months-long disruption, and exploring offshore storage solutions. They're reassuring the public with one hand and quietly preparing for failure with the other.

That gap is where the trust collapses.

Countries we rely on — South Korea, China, Thailand, Singapore — started restricting fuel exports weeks ago. By the government's own criteria, that should have triggered an escalation. Instead, we've been told all will be okay. Do we really know that?

Even the flagship policy is wobbling. The billion-dollar LNG terminal, the centrepiece of this energy security plan, is now in doubt. It relied on cheap global gas that no longer exists. The same global instability they say no one could predict has just blown up their big solution.

Leadership is measured in decisions, not excuses

Where does responsibility sit? Labour owns the first failure. They let Marsden Point close and didn't fund the reserve. That's on them.

But this government owns the decision that matters right now. They had the plan. They had the warnings. They had the numbers. And they said no. Too costly. Trying to be a lean government. Now, unbelievably, they're considering spending public money to rebuild the very reserve they scrapped 18 months ago — at a much higher cost, in the middle of a crisis showing no end.

You don't get to call the insurance company after your car crashes.

Christopher Luxon stood there 13 days ago and said: "Hope is not a plan... We can't control global events, but we can control our response to them."

He's right. But a responsible, prudent government would've taken the insurance steps years ago. Labour should have done this. Much of this is on them. But when this government had the chance to buy the insurance the country in hindsight needed, we didn't take it either.

For all the talk of being prudent and responsible and not relying on hope and preparing the economy to minimise the impact of future crises on Kiwis — it's complete rubbish. Both governments could have, and should have, done more.

Yes, it's costly. But what's the alternative cost of not doing it? We're living it now. It's way more expensive and way more difficult. And we're at further risk because of it.

When the country is facing an energy shock, when supply chains are tightening, when ministers are contradicting themselves, people expect one thing from leadership: clarity, accountability, and action.

What they're getting instead is a paper trail of missed chances, delayed decisions, and warnings ignored. This wasn't unavoidable. It was a choice from both governments. And now we're living with it.

Check out the podcast below: