Diesel, as we are finding out, runs New Zealand.
The price of diesel is squeezing the life out of us as consumer households.
The current price per litre of diesel in New Zealand is $3.20.
In 2010 it was $.89 cents.
That’s in case you’re wondering why food and everything else has gone up.
The countries that have taken concrete action to decrease their risk to petroleum are those who are moving away from diesel consumption.
They have seen the risk and used their power as states to take the action they needed to. Norway is aiming for 100% of new passenger cars to be electric, and half of all road transport already it. Laos has made a permanent ban on importing diesel and petrol passenger vehicles, and they want to get to 30% electric fleet in 3 years. The country is leveraging its vast domestic hydropower to transition its fleet to over 30% electric by 2030. So is the Netherlands. Nepal has 73% new vehicles going electric. China has 55% of new car sales as electric in some form. Singapore is catching up with China. Those countries can be sure that the cumulative effects of the Ukrainian, Iranian, and Saudi wars will hit them less and less each year.
Not so New Zealand.
New Zealand is still buying about 90% of our vehicles as combustion engines and 99% of our trucks on diesel. New Zealand, due to voluminous protests from farmers in 2018 and stupid National policies since 2023, have made us one of the most vulnerable countries on earth to consistently elevated diesel and petrol prices. So our farms and food manufacturers and transport fleet are pumping more and more expensive diesel every day, and they are those costs on to us muggins. So consumer-citizens suffer.
If we had not been collectively bullied by farmers would would now had 20% of our fleet running on electricity. The power of Fonterra and Z Energy in 2026 is simply a recent edition to the clear cartel that the combined agricultural and petroleum lobby have over National here.
The diesel economy has no check upon it, so we have to look elsewhere.
The question as always in a 3 year political cycle is whether you can make a measurable difference to any price, despite the sickening vulnerability that the National coalition have left New Zealand in.
One of the most important criticisms of the Labour-led government of 2017-23 was that they didn’t get enough done fast enough. That criticism has been heard.
So the question is speed: what policies can a new Labour government when we haven’t been bold, we haven’t decreased our petroleum dependence?
Supermarkets from dirt to dinnerplate are diesel-drivel businesses. National and the Greens are proposing a structural separation that will very quickly end up in the courts after the duopoly launches a scale of campaign that will swarf the concerted attack Telecom undertook to actively undermine the Labour government in 2006-7 during the legislative contest to structurally separate the telecom industry.
Any reform that takes more than 2 years to implement will simply now be punished by the public. Doesn’t matter that it’s not fair.
Arena Williams understands this need for speed:
So this is what will happen under Labour that generates speed in reform:
- Immediate Wholesale Separation: Labour promises to legislate within 100 days to force Foodstuffs and Woolworths to split their wholesale supply businesses from their retail stores into two independently run entities (Foodstuffs Wholesale and Woolworths Wholesale).
- Guaranteed Stock Access Right Away: It immediately grants smaller grocers eg 4 Square and independent competitors eg The Warehouse a legal right to buy stock from any wholesaler on fair terms, bypassing the time it takes to build new distribution networks.
- Removing Restraint of Trade Laws: The policy voids anti-competitive restraints of trade for small grocers (such as Four Square, Circle K, and Night N Day operators), allowing them to lower prices or switch chains immediately rather than waiting years for structural divestments.
- No Waiting for Regulatory Reviews: Unlike National’s proposal—which conditions splitting Foodstuffs on a delayed Commerce Commission review—Labour moves straight to statutory requirements.
- Avoiding Lengthy Asset Divestments: Unlike the Green Party’s plan to force the sale and acquisition of 120 existing private stores and distribution centres to launch KiwiMart, Labour does not require buying out or building a brand-new retail footprint from the ground up. That is the difference of years and years, because you can guarantee the duopoly will get in there and buy up anything in a neighbourhood, or right next door, or simply instruct its National mates to make sure Bayleys and other National donors will drag any land sale out whether public or private. That’s been their predatory practise for decades.
And just to make sure your non-diesel dollar goes further, Labour are putting a cap of $20 per week on public transport. If you are in Auckland with its electric bus and ferry and train fleet, that’s far far less vulnerability to diesel or petrol altogether in your life. That’s fast because it can be just loaded onto the discount and concession cards.
And if you are travelling, by bus or train, to get to a doctor, you won’t be paying for prescriptions and you get 3 GP visits per year, and more.
So don’t forget the level of impatience in the electorate:
They want it all and they want it now and they want it at scale.
Maybe that’s not fair or maybe the voters are collectively intelligent in the need for large scale change.
Either way, this is the diesel election and we need the fastest way possible out of it.