Mike's Minute: It's oil and gas ban repeal week - hooray!

If you want to talk about doing stuff that matters, this week will produce one of the great ones. 

Repealing the oil and gas ban, as the Government are about to do, puts right an egregious wrong – possibly the most egregious wrong of the last Government. 

What gives this current Government a better than even chance of a second term is the fact the damage done to the economy was done by the very same people who are still in Labour, still running Labour, and presumably will still argue for the same recipe of destruction next year. 

Megan Woods drove the oil and gas ban under the instruction of you-know-who. There was no warning, no consultation. Just a fateful announcement in Taranaki. 

It was idealism at its very worst. If we had all the windmills and solar panels and batteries in place it might have made more sense. 

But as we have seen and felt for the past handful of winters, we don’t. Not even close. 

What has made it particularly galling is that Australia has doubled down on gas. It understands gas is the transition fuel, while the so-called renewable transformation takes place. 

Australia's gas industry is run out of Western Australia, which is run by a Labour Government, and fed to the rest of Australia, which is run by a Labour Government. 

And that, as I have said before, is what can make Labour palatable. A centrist Labour party is electable i.e. Albanese's version or Hawke's. 

The Ardern and Hipkins version look like a bunch of wonks who never met an economy they couldn't wreck. 

Now, the repeal won't solve everything overnight. Our reputation is so damaged that a lot of face time and explaining has had to be undertaken with potential investors, hence the Government's $200m stake in the game fund. 

If you ever wanted a living, breathing, tangible example of a Government that simply didn’t get it, think back to your last couple of winters where the coal pile is a mile high, the rain may or may not have come, the gas reports keep getting worse, the spot price heads to the stratosphere and your power bill continues to head to the roof. 

That is Labour's energy policy. 

That is the Labour Government's idea of a fun winter. 

Getting that repealed is rectifying a shockingly shallow, ill-conceived idea and a monumental mistake. 

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