Barry Soper: Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent on the Government's plan for fuel and supply chains

The Government's setting up a Ministerial Oversight Group on economic security to focus on fuel and supply chains.

The Middle East conflict's forced crude oil over $100 USD a barrel, and made New Zealand's sharemarket plunge, 3.27 percent down so far.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis says the group will be briefed by MBIE weekly and have input from Treasury, the Reserve Bank, MFAT and others. 

Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper says the Government's acknowledged the Middle East crisis will be tough on everyone, but New Zealand can stay in good shape.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And Barre Soper, senior political correspondent, is with US High

(00:02):
Barry afternoon. Heather, Right, So I am imagining that Chris
Luckson got lots of questions on the leadership business.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Well, no, I've just come from the news conference now
and it is over half an hour and they just started,
and of course he's repeated what he has said, well
what he said on the station on Friday afternoon, that
he's not looking over his shoulder, he's not developing the
Battle of Britain, twitch he's getting on with business. And

(00:28):
when they asked him about that in the press conference today,
he said that's exactly what he's going to do and
certainly seemed to have the backing of Nikola Willis, who's standing.
I guess her career really depends on Chris Luxon and
she was standing beside him. But it was a bit
of a scrum for the politicians coming down to Wellington
for Parliament today, the media waiting at the airport for them,

(00:52):
and I mean a stuff headline said watch Luxe and
avoids question on arrival in Wellington. Well, he's already said
what he was going to say. You know, are you
worried about your leadership being maybe compromised by your performance
last week. Well, of course he's already said that he

(01:12):
doesn't feel it is, and would seem by all the
politicians that were interviewed on the way in. But it's
the old story, isn't it that you, as leader of
the last person to know if there's a plot against you.
But no, no, there's not. No, no, absolutely there's not.
But what I'm saying is that you know, a leader

(01:34):
can always sound confident right up until the caucus vote.
There's a caucus tomorrow. But I don't think anything like
that will happen. I think the National Party will look
realistically at these figures, say it's a bloody tough time
and with the Middle East crisis now being underway, it's
going to make it even tougher for them. I think
they acknowledged that, although they say we're in pretty good

(01:56):
shape on many aspects of the economy at the moment,
so if it's a short term war, we will be
much better off. But of course the public already finding
the price at the petrol pump at some bowsers have
gone up already and yet we have almost a month
storage in place, so wine Earth petrol companies can put

(02:20):
up their prices to over three dollars now is beyond
me because they've been assured that they'll have a supply.
We also have a deal with Singapore that was negotiated
quite recently where Singapore will supply us with emergency fuel
in situations like this and we'll supply them with food.
So we've got to back up in Singapore.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
So when you say three dollars, you are talking about premium,
not absolute. I have assumed ninety one. Do you think
that the media chasing the Prime Minister through the airport
today was just over the top, Well.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yes I do, because you know he had already said
he'd been on done all the media rounds this morning,
he was on this program, he was on the Radio
New Zealand program in the morning, so he's done all
the rounds. He's been na, yeah, what's the point, but
you know they do all stopped Judith Collins on the
way through the airport as well. She stopped and said

(03:19):
he's got nothing to worry about. The Caucuses on board
with him, So you know it's a bit of it's
not a storm and a teacup Because a twenty eight
point four rating the opinion polls is certainly not a
good place for the National Party to be. But I'm
always of the view, with the exception of the war,
that it.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Will be in the media are behaving on Monday as
they should have behaved on Friday, Right, this is Friday story.
We've already tied a bow on the thing and it's over,
and then two three days later we're getting him chased
through the airport. That should have happened on Friday. Anyway,
does it sound to you like the government is not
going to cut petrol tax, but is going to stop
the pedal petrol tax increase of twelve cents for next year.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Well, they haven't legislated for it yet, so it's got
to be passed in legislation before they can increase it
by twelve percent. Don't forget there was a freeze on
it for some time. Justin dar Durn, I think it
was in twenty twenty two or something. She in fact
reduced the petrol tax by twenty five cents a liter.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
There's temporary though, Yeah, oh absolutely, it's temporary.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
And that's what Luxem was asked about today. But Nikola
Willa is standing by his side. She says there will
be no petrol tax reductions in the short term.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
I think this is a time for politicians to tell
the truth, which is there is no easy answer on that,
because if we are to suddenly reduce petrol tax, actually
every tax payer pays for that, and they pay for
that in a couple of ways. They pay for that
both in terms of reduced activity on our roads, but

(04:54):
potentially they also pay for that and increase borrowing, increased
interest costs, and increased debt. So what New Zealanders can
expect from us is that we will weigh that sensibly
in order to deliver the best medium term security for
New Zealanders.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
So it's an abeyance actually at the moment, you could say,
and it depends on the length of this Middle Eastern
debarcle just when it finishes, and if it's over in
a couple of weeks, then I think we'll be looking
much better.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Do you think that they will rethink that? I mean,
is this an absolute flat no to the petrol tax cut? No,
it's not, okay.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
I mean, you know, this is election yere and the
public is suffering enough now and they've got a big
petrol bill to pay as well. I think the government
won't wear that.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah, Barry, thanks very much, appreciate it. Barry so for
Senior political correspondent.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
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