Claire Trevett: The problems and politics of a winter power crisis for Simeon Brown, Shane Jones

OPINION

As far as crises go, a two-hour risk of power cuts delivered by a polar zephyr on a crisp, still Friday morning may seem to be as short and sharp as they come.

However, when that comes with a warning of repeat risks of power cuts throughout the winter and notices that power and gas bills are set to rise, the Government cannot afford to disregard it.

In this instance, nor was the Government tempted to.

State grid operator Transpower’s national power shortage warning notice and a report on the shortage of gas in New Zealand delivered a mixed blessing for the Government.

After the two-hour great freeze of May 10 crisis was navigated without major incident, Transpower congratulated everybody for their efforts in trimming power use, but also warned it had been a near-miss and more would follow.

That is not good news for the coalition Government as it heads into its first winter in power.

Any energy security problem - from split pipelines in Ruakaka to sporadic power cuts - can become a headache for a government.

Blackouts and schools and hospitals running out of gas are hellish headlines for any government to face up to.

On the other hand, it was also convenient timing for a government in need of an advertisement for the merits of its plans to re-open gas and oil exploration in the near future and to fast-track the consenting of big projects, such as energy projects.

Far be it from the Government to waste its convenient crisis.

The May 10 low-power hours came just a day after the release of the report showed the gas shortage was even more dire than it was expected to be a year earlier and Genesis said it would resume buying coal again.

That gas report didn’t necessarily surprise anybody, although Government ministers Simeon Brown and Shane Jones did not hold back from pointing out it was even worse than expected and what that might mean for everyone from big industry to schools and hospitals to consumers facing steep bills.

It would also cost the Government, in the midst of negotiations to renew its own contract for gas provision for hospitals, schools and the like. Yet another big bill landing on its doorstep.

The Government can only go so far in claiming how dire things might be, since it’s its job to fix the problem. It doesn’t want to create uncertainty or look as if it cannot control the situation.

Brown and Jones took a three-pronged approach to dealing with all of this.

First, they blamed Labour for banning oil and gas exploration. Then they tried to make it look as if they had things in hand.

Finally, they put up the longer-term solution - two dishes they had prepared earlier.

That solution was the combination of repealing the ban on gas exploration and fast-tracked energy projects producing renewable energy - both of which were conveniently in their quarterly action plan.

The exercise in making sure the frozen citizens blamed Labour was the most theatrical and useless part of this, given it solved no problems at all beyond a political one of diverting blame.

The Transpower warning came out half an hour before Question Time on Thursday.

Brown stood in Parliament and announced it was all Labour’s fault before holding up a chart to show how many more times Transpower had issued shortage notices to power generators since the ban was announced in 2018, compared to the decade before it. Quite a spike.

Then there was Jones. In 2018, Jones stood beside former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern and Green co-leader James Shaw, when Ardern announced the ban on issuing new permits for oil and gas mining.

Admittedly, he had seemed to be having some kind of out-of-body experience at the time. His kabuki-esque facial expressions prompted a great volume of mirth and memes. Nonetheless, there he was, NZ First having apparently not located the handbrake it applied liberally to other things in that coalition.

Shane Jones has an out-of-body experience as the then Prime Minister announced the oil and gas ban in 2018. Photo / Mark Mitchell

He was a lot happier this week as the Resources Minister and head cheerleader of the repeal of the gas ban.

Not for him any more the shackles of that climate-loving Labour coalition. He could proudly stand and say it had been a big mistake, not of his making, and the frozen chickens were coming home to roost.

Jones did this by blaming the “woke-riddled left” for the gas problem.

It was not quite as simple as Brown claimed, but Labour had made itself a target with the ban, done with minimal consultation before it was sprung on the industry.

Brown set out the impact, noting it happened before there was enough renewable generation to pick up the slack and had made companies unwilling to invest even in existing gas fields due to the uncertainty about its future.

That is also National’s problem in repealing the ban. Uncertainty about whether Labour will simply ban it all again next time it is in power will be a deterrent to companies coming back in.

It didn’t take long for former Energy Minister Megan Woods to point out National’s solutions were very delayed ones: it would not deliver any more gas or power until years after the great freeze of May 10, 2024. Wood also pointed out that gas production was already on the decline long before Labour moved to ban any further exploration.

Then came the more important job of making it look as if the Government had the current situation under control.

Governments must look as if they were prepared in advance for foreseeable problems.

Few things are more foreseeable than winter and the accompanying problem of generating enough power to meet the demand.

So far, Brown has spent a lot of time setting out what the problem is, what it will mean for ordinary people going about their lives and whose fault he thinks it is.

Now the hot air and buck-passing have been expelled, it is left to Brown to muscle up immediate solutions to the winter woes.

It is predominantly down to the ongoing juggle by the energy sector to trying to ensure demand is controlled when needed.

Thus far the other solutions consist of more coal and an emergency gas security group within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to try to ensure that those for whom gas is critical get their share.

Urgent meetings were held with Transpower and power generators over potential disruptions to power supply.

Brown may have even done his bit by cutting back his own power use on Friday morning although that is difficult to corroborate.

However, he will be hoping that the silver lining to the pre-winter brush with power cuts will be easing the path of public acceptance for those controversial longer term solutions of lifting the gas ban and fast-track consenting.

Claire Trevett is the NZ Herald’s political editor, based at Parliament in Wellington. She started at the Herald in 2003 and joined the Press Gallery team in 2007. She is a life member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.