Mike's Minute: How did we get into the gas shortage mess?

This time yesterday when we were talking about the gas shortage we didn’t have a couple of facts. 

The first is that Genesis would later in the day announce their intention to import more coal and would be doing so for the next couple of years 

They talked of the unreliability of the so-called renewables. It's not just coal of course, but Indonesian coal, which is not exactly top of the line environmentally. 

The second fact came in a ministerial statement to the house from Simeon Brown, who told us of the lack of gas production this year so far. It's about 28% down and this is the equivalent of all the domestic usage in the country for two years. 

Think about that. You and I, everyone who has gas and all that we use for two years is what they have not produced so far this year. 

So as the ship loads of coal start arriving MBIE has set up a group to monitor where we go from here and how we do it, to get an accurate picture as to what's really going on specifically. 

They will also set about reversing a few laws around licences and exploration. The trouble with that part is our reputation as a reliable player in the market is shot and needs rebuilding and then even if the drills arrived tomorrow the answer is years away. 

Which brings us back to how we got here. Jacinda Ardern. 

Yet again the carnage her and her fellow travellers, many of whom are still in Parliament and present during Simeon Brown's statement, has arrived at our doorstep as we head into a winter that, even at the best of times, we struggle to keep warm in. 

Beyond the democratic mechanism of booting idiots out of office, how bad and how catastrophic does the damage to our lives have to be before you mount an argument that suggests these wreckers are the worst Government we have seen in our lifetime? 

How many who got sucked in by it all now regret putting their faith and vote behind the idiocy that has driven us here? 

Of those who are left listening to Simeon lay it out so starkly yesterday, who stands up and proudly backs their decisions? 

Who defends the licence bans, the lack of gas and the importation of coal, as they told us renewables are the only way? 

You’ve rarely seen such a catastrophic example of the cart before the horse. 

We have rarely lived through such chaotic, bordering on criminal, negligence. 

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