Last week a long-standing geologist friend chewed my ear about the government’s irresponsible ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration.

I call it irresponsible because on the evidence no meaningful consideration was given to the interests of New Zealanders. Industry was not consulted; Cabinet was reduced to a rubber stamp. The ban was not prior Labour Party policy.

Respected New Zealand Herald columnist Fran O’Sullivan wrote that it was rushed through by the three coalition party leaders “so it could be announced on April 12 just before the Prime Minister headed for Europe”. On this trip she could “make her debut as a climate change warrior”. How nice.

The Government has made no case that the ban will have environmental benefits. The Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment had pointed out that it could increase global emissions.

Nor has the government provided an economic justification. Why whimsically destroy a successful and skilled energy industry cluster in Taranaki?

Presumptively, the most efficient policy for reducing emissions and encouraging carbon sinks is a uniform price on carbon. A ban on gas implicitly subsidises coal.

The damning evidence of indifference to New Zealanders’ interests is the absence of any supporting cost-benefit justification.

Minister Megan Woods reportedly said one was not done because no one knows how much gas is in the ground! As a reason for banning exploration this is beyond farcical; it is deeply unnerving. Why the haste anyway?

My friend pointed out that the resilience of electricity supply currently depends on backup from quick-fire gas turbines. On current estimates New Zealand has 10-11 years of gas left.

To signal a target of 100% renewable electricity generation regardless of cost is irresponsible and utterly unnecessary. Our renewable proportion is already extraordinarily high.

The political and economic costs of achieving electricity resiliency in the absence of fossil fuels could be eye-watering. At vast expense, we could cover the country with windfarms as largely idle backup, and still not achieve the resilience of gas backup.

Investors in long-term capital projects need to be confident that future governments in coming decades will provide a stable and predictable investment environment. 

The government’s dreadful decision process has told them, irreversibly, that this government cannot be trusted to do that.

Risk from unpredictable government is called “sovereign risk”. It makes a country poorer.