‘Avoid the time warp’: Deputy PM offers five lessons from Covid as fuel crisis arrives

Tuesday, 31 March 2026

Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour says New Zealand must avoid what he views as costly mistakes during the response to the Covid-19 pandemic, as the war in the Middle East strains global oil supplies and threatens shortages at home.

“Nobody wants to relive Covid, but that period had many lessons if we want to learn them. We’d be mad to ignore a live experiment in politics and policy during a scary global situation,” he said in a speech to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.

Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil usually flows, was a problem that the Government had to contend with, he said. While there was currently sufficient fuel in the country, there had to be a back up plan of demand-side restrictions if the situation deteriorated.

Seymour said details of that plan - part of the National Fuel Plan - were still being worked on, but laid out five broad reflections he had from the pandemic.

1. Avoid the time trap

Seymour said “the first and most important lesson” from Covid was to “not let the situation warp time”.

“During Covid the Government slowed down time,” he said. “The daily press conferences made 24 hours seem like a year, and the first 24 minutes we spent waiting to hear the day’s figures felt like a month.”

Seymour argued decisions at the time were being made without proper consideration of their long-term impact, especially fiscal decisions that led debt to balloon. Treasury estimates the Government spent $66 billion in its response, which went on went on for too long.

By contrast, Seymour said, the coalition Government was sticking with financial support that was “targeted, timely, temporary and funded”.

Senior reporter Juliet Speedy explores how the fuel crisis is hitting New Zealanders, from rural teachers to elderly care providers, as the Government prepares to roll out its April 1 cost of living support package.

Last week, the Government announced about 143,000 families with children would get an additional $50 a week through a boost to the in-work tax credit. The change comes into effect on Wednesday.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis has dismissed calls for broad fuel tax cuts, as have been announced in Australia this week.

2. Balance human needs

Seymour said the Government needed to “keep all of New Zealanders’ goals in perspective,” arguing education was “glossed over” during Covid restrictions that kept schools closed.

“How educated the population is will trump any other variable across a generation. But, in the Covid time trap we abandoned it,” he said.

“Last week I was asked countless times whether I thought students should be learning from home because of the fuel crisis. I said of course not, because we cannot afford to put education back at the bottom of the totem pole.”

Deputy PM David Seymour says the country has enough petrol, diesel and jet fuel, but officials are working on a back up plan in case.

Seymour said “all human priorities” had to be balanced as the country confronted the fuel crisis. “That’s why education, for one thing, is not going to be sacrificed in the event this Government needs to move to demand-side rationing,” he said.

3. Do it with, not to the people

The deputy prime minister argued “the Covid response took on its own momentum,” and left parts of the population behind.

“Vaccination was only the most infamous flashpoint,” he said. “Many others felt the response was being done to rather than with them.”

Seymour said stringent regulations imposed by the Government of the day caused frustration and inefficiencies for businesses who could have assisted in the overall response.

The coalition Government, by contrast, was “working with business and community to help solve problems,” he argued.

4. Remember we’re all human, all New Zealanders

Stuff visual journalists were in the thick of the action for all 23 days of the occupation of Parliament's grounds and the surrounding streets. Here's some of their best work.

Another issue with the Covid response was the willingness the population had to accept “the suspension of democracy and the rule of law,” Seymour said.

“When the police commissioner said the police would follow people around and perhaps ‘take them to our place’ without any actual law to enforce, people shrugged,” he said.

“It’s essential that any possible restrictions on normal life are done clearly and transparently, with no short cuts on democracy or due process.”

Seymour said if people were required to dramatically change their lives without understanding the reasons and legal basis for doing so, it would lead to civil unrest. “That’s when you get riots on the lawns of Parliament,” he said, referring to the 23-day occupation of Parliament’s grounds in March 2023.

5. Learn from the world, and don’t reinvent the wheel

“Everything had to be done our way, as if it was being done for the first time,” Seymour said of New Zealand’s Covid response.

“We should never be too proud to learn from another country. We’re pretty good, but we don’t have a monopoly on wisdom.”

Deputy PM David Seymour said the coalition Government’s response to the fuel crisis would be different to Covid.

As was the case during the pandemic, New Zealand enjoys a good deal of isolation from the rest of the world as it deals with the current oil shock, Seymour said.

“If we can see what’s coming, we can take time to prepare, and we can watch what others are doing to plan our own response.”

‘Common sense’

Seymour said calls for more spending and more Government intervention at this time were misplaced.

“With cool heads, we can respond to fuel shortages from the Iran war without committing the knee-jerk mistakes made during Covid,” he said.

“We cannot prevent every external shock. But we can make sure New Zealand responds with fiscal discipline and common sense.”