Shane Jones canned emergency diesel plan: Labour
Wednesday, 25 March 2026
Labour energy spokesperson Megan Woods has accused Resources Minister Shane Jones of delaying an increase in the country’s diesel reserves by chopping and changing an initiative under way when the coalition Government came to power in 2023.
However, documents suggest it is unclear whether the extra diesel would have been available ahead of the current fuel crisis that is unfolding in the wake of the conflict in the Middle East.
Woods stated in a media release when energy minister in November 2022 that the Labour government had decided to buy an additional store of 70 million litres of diesel that would be kept on hand for critical services such as emergency services and food transporters in the event of a supply crunch.
That would have been on top of the 21 days’ worth of diesel that fuel importers must hold in reserve in case of supply disruptions.
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The additional 70 million litres would have been equivalent to about another seven days of normal, nationwide supply.
Woods noted that Jones put a stop on the initiative in a public statement he issued in June 2024, after the coalition government came to power and he was appointed associate energy minister.
“The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment will halt work on procuring reserve diesel stock and explore other ways to bolster New Zealand’s diesel resilience,” he said in the statement.
The following April, Jones instead directed the country’s three largest fuel importers, Z Energy, BP and Mobil, to increase their holdings of diesel to 28 days cover, but giving them until July 2028 to comply.
Diesel has emerged as probably the weakest link in the fuel supply chain in the wake of the conflict in the Middle East, as both the current and former minister appear to have been aware of.
Jones described it in a 2024 discussion paper issued by MBIE as “our most strategically important important fuel”.
Woods said the extra diesel reserve could have been available this year if the coalition Government had stuck to the former government’s plan.
MBIE officials advised Jones in October 2024 that tanks could have been filled with the extra 70 million litres of diesel “from mid-2026” if a decision was made to proceed with that initiative by early 2025.
Responding to criticism from Woods in Parliament about the plan change, Jones suggested Woods had not properly put the wheels in motion on the reserve during Labour’s term in power.
He described the plan Woods referred to in her 2022 release as “some doodling left on the side of a Cabinet paper by the former minister”.
There was no budget for the initiative and “no proposal that I could credibly take forward to my colleagues,” he said.
“Consequently, we’ve taken the option of putting the acid on the oil companies to secure 28 days.”
Woods noted officials had advised Jones in 2024 the government diesel store could have been funded by a surplus of tens of millions of dollars that had accumulated in the Petroleum or Engine Fuels Monitoring Levy Fund,.
That is a levy paid for by a tax of 0.69 cents per litre on transport fuels.
MBIE said in the 2024 discussion paper that was signed off by Jones that prior to the closure of the Marsden Point refinery in 2022, stocks of diesel averaged about 20 days’ worth of consumption and that the refinery held enough feedstock to provide another five days’ of supply.