A group of senior ministers will meet on Wednesday night to receive urgent briefings on New Zealand’s fuel supply and contingency plans.
Cabinet’s ministerial oversight group - chaired by Finance Minister Nicola Willis, is also comprised of Trade Minister Todd McClay, Energy Minister Simon Watts, Associate Energy Minister Shane Jones, Commerce Minister Scott Simpson and Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden - will be briefed by a new incident management group set up by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), and from the fuel industry’s coordinating group.
“The key goal of that ministerial group is to have the best information quickly and to make sure that we are thinking ahead so that we make good decisions,” Willis said. "And let's start thinking now about potential responses."
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon downplayed fuel stock concerns saying, “we've got supplies and stocks in-country, on the water outside the Hormuz Strait, we've got arrangements [with] the International Energy Agency, and we've also got our essential supplies agreements with Singapore as well”.
Willis said ensuring New Zealand has fuel security, “not just for the next 50 days, but into the coming months, is a priority for ministers”.
MBIE’s latest fuel stock update as of midnight, March 8, recorded a total of 52 days for petrol, diesel and jet fuel in country and in-water.
There was 57.9 days worth of petrol total, 49.9 of diesel and 46.8 of jet fuel.
“We're conscious that whenever the price of fuel goes up, that has an impact on other parts of the economy, whether that's freight or other businesses that use fuel,” Willis said.
“We will be monitoring all of that, and we are conscious that while we can't control what's happening with international prices, what we can do is respond sensibly with really good information.”
On Tuesday, Willis said it was important the Government “doesn't give a knee jerk response, because we saw oil prices spike up, and now they've come back again”.
“Clearly, what everyone is watching is how soon this conflict ends, because the longer it is prolonged, the more profound the impacts are for the price of oil, for the energy market and global economic disruption. So it's in everyone's interests that the conflict come to an end.”
On how the conflict would impact May’s Budget, Willis said while she “ironically got my preliminary forecast last week, which showed that we were in much better shape… that was then, this is now”.
“What the Treasury will now be doing is monitoring local developments. They will update me with final economic forecasts for the budget on the first of April. At that juncture, we still have the opportunity to respond in terms of our fiscal choices and our budget choices.”
The Budget package would go to Cabinet a few weeks after that, “so we do still have options between getting those final economic forecasts and then what our fiscal response is”.
"This is not the time to be expanding our position in terms of spending, and it is a time to really dig into our strategy, which has been to say, let's be prudent, let's be careful.
“We do need to get that debt curve bending down.”
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