Labour should learn from Jacinda Ardern’s calamitous oil and gas ban

In the UK, the Labour party has pledged to halt any new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, which the Tories today suggest could cost billions in tax revenue over the next ten years. 

When it comes to energy policy, Labour could really benefit from looking at what happened when New Zealand’s Labour party tried the same thing in the South Sea. 

Six years ago, the Jacinda Ardern government enacted a similar policy in New Zealand. Today, gas-dependent industrial sectors find themselves with something of a python around their necks. Politicians here in this nation of 5.5 million have even begun to openly fret about the country’s ability to keep the lights on.

Indeed, one of the first policy decisions of the conservative National party government of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has been to bin the policy. Luxon’s regional minister, Shane Jones, who in a former political life was himself a Labour party minister, says that the Ardern edict was spurred by ‘green gullibility’, courtesy of a ‘woke-riddled