Families are cutting back on heating, small businesses are struggling to pay their bills, and manufacturers are shutting their doors while the Prime Minister plays political games.

Today, Christopher Luxon sent Labour a letter demanding support for more fossil fuel exploration. It’s a textbook political manoeuvre: the old “blame the last lot” routine. Leaders reach for it when they don’t have a credible plan of their own. 

On the eve of his Government’s big energy announcement, he’s scrambling to shift blame for today’s spiralling energy prices and avoid scrutiny of his Government’s abysmal energy record.

Luxon’s Track Record of Failure:

The Luxon Government has undermined the transition to a cheaper, cleaner, more secure energy system. Here’s a few ways they’ve done it:

  1. They drove away offshore wind developers by inviting seabed mining into the fast-track process – choosing mining company dividends over long-term energy security. 
  2. They cancelled the NZ Battery project, designed to help us deal with the dry year risk – choosing volatility over resilience.
  3. They scrapped the Decarbonising Industry fund, designed to support industry to move away from fossil fuels – choosing pollution over progress.
  4. They let the big four power companies get away with profiteering, choosing profiteering over affordability. These companies sent a record payout of nearly $1.4 billion in dividends to their shareholders this year, instead of reinvesting in renewables.

This government has clung doggedly to their ideological support for the free-market and expensive, finite and dirty fossil fuels. This has driven higher electricity costs, increased energy insecurity and pumped up climate pollution.  

New Zealanders and the climate are the ones that are paying the price for this backwards approach to energy, and for our Prime Minister’s political stunts.

The reality is that gas is the problem, not the solution. Gas delivers volatility, energy insecurity and inflated power bills all while sabotaging our collective future with climate emissions. Because of the way our electricity market works, when expensive gas is used the wholesale price of electricity spikes and that pushes bills higher for households and businesses alike.

The Path Forward

There is a better way. A secure and affordable energy future relies on accelerating the build of cheaper renewables, modernising the market, and putting people ahead of profiteering. These practical steps can be taken now to lower bills, protect jobs, and build a resilient energy system for all New Zealanders:

  1. Rapidly build more wind and solar – these are much cheaper ways to generate electricity than coal and gas, and when paired with hydro they can create a resilient, year-round system.
  2. Offer interest-free loans for household solar and batteries. Rooftop solar lets households generate their own cheap electricity. With interest-free loans, rooftop solar would expand rapidly. Victoria in Australia has ten times more solar than New Zealand because people were supported to install it.
  3. Put power in people’s hands – Provide grant funding and other support for community-owned renewable energy schemes.
  4. Crack down on profiteering – reform the market so that it prioritises emissions reductions, affordability, and resilience.
  5. Remove fossil fuel generation from the wholesale market and ring-fence it as a strategic/dry year reserve.
  6. Extend finance and support for home insulation and heat pumps so that all under-insulated homes are insulated in the next 10 years.
PETITION: Choose a Clean Energy Future

We call on the Govt to embrace New Zealand’s Clean Energy Future, invest in solar and wind, and reject new fossil fuel electricity generation and a new fossil gas import facility.

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