Speaker 1: Kyota at Chelsea Daniels here, host of the Front Page.
Speaker 1: We're taking away breakover summer, but to help build the gap,
Speaker 1: we're re issuing some of our most significant episodes of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five on behalf of the Front Page team.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and we look forward to being back
Speaker 1: with you on January twelfth, twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: Kyota.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels, and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 1: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. A self
Speaker 1: described prince of the Provinces, there are a few politicians
Speaker 1: like Shane Jones. He's the Minister of Oceans and Fisheries,
Speaker 1: Regional Development and Resources and has been in the spotlight
Speaker 1: recently for spearheading a restart and expansion of oil and
Speaker 1: gas in New Zealand. Over the years, he has faced
Speaker 1: criticism for his close relationships with industry leaders over the environment,
Speaker 1: comments like Goodbye Freddy when talking about if an endangered
Speaker 1: frog stood in the way of mining construction probably doesn't help.
Speaker 1: Today on the Front Page, Shane Jones is with us
Speaker 1: to take us through his latest push for oil and
Speaker 1: gas changes to oceans and fisheries and whether the New
Speaker 1: Zealand's power crisis is fixable. First off, when it comes
Speaker 1: to oil and gas, remind me why we're repealing the
Speaker 1: ban in the first place.
Speaker 3: So the oil and gas industry as a contributor to
Speaker 3: the energy mix of New Zealand. In the absence of
Speaker 3: gas or coal, our electricity system doesn't work. We have
Speaker 3: the option of importing gas, but then that worsens our vulnerability,
Speaker 3: although we may be forced to do it. Everyone wants
Speaker 3: to race to achieve renewable one hundred percent electricity, but
Speaker 3: in the transitional period we need fossil fuels and I'm
Speaker 3: a politician who believes we should use our own resources
Speaker 3: before we import other people's resources. The two hundred million
Speaker 3: dollars set aside as a part of the package beyond
Speaker 3: the oil and gas ban is to both accelerate what
Speaker 3: we know is already here and hopefully to durisk in
Speaker 3: the future in the event that foreign firms or domestic
Speaker 3: investors want to have another go and open up new
Speaker 3: gas fields. So it's really an attempt on my part,
Speaker 3: on behalf of the government to buttress our security.
Speaker 2: Will there ever be a day give it? You know?
Speaker 1: So five ten, twenty years time, when we will be
Speaker 1: one hundred percent renewable.
Speaker 3: Do you think the challenge is that the best renewable
Speaker 3: option for US is more hydro or more geothermal. The
Speaker 3: difficulty with solar and wind, which people are investing in,
Speaker 3: is that you have to overinvest because of the unreliable
Speaker 3: nature of the weather. So let's say you build a
Speaker 3: solar farm for one hundred megawatts. Figuratively speaking, you can
Speaker 3: really only rely on it to give you forty or
Speaker 3: fifty percent of that hundred megawatts. So then you have
Speaker 3: to build two hundred megawatts so that over the lifetime
Speaker 3: and the cycle of the weather, you can get up
Speaker 3: to one hundred percent, and just no one is ever
Speaker 3: going to put in that additional investment. So us Kiwi's
Speaker 3: historically what we've done when it hasn't rained, we've drawn
Speaker 3: on the natural gas, which has declined. I think it's
Speaker 3: fair to say that the decrease is both a matter
Speaker 3: of politics as well as mother nature. Look an art
Speaker 3: form about blaming Jacinda, but a lot of that is
Speaker 3: just because I'm a politician. But the real danger of
Speaker 3: Jasinda's oil and gas band decision was a chilled investment.
Speaker 3: It pretty much sent a signal to New Zealand businesses
Speaker 3: and overseas investors. There's no future in New Zealand for
Speaker 3: this type of fuel to power the economy because the
Speaker 3: government wants to ban it and there are so many
Speaker 3: other places overseas for foreigners to put the capital in
Speaker 3: and use gas, and that's what they did.
Speaker 1: So you don't think that we'll ever move one hundred
Speaker 1: percent away from oil and gas.
Speaker 3: I love sixty five. It won't happen in my lifetime.
Speaker 1: In terms of geothermal energy, though, you've promised that will
Speaker 1: double production by twenty forty at the same time as
Speaker 1: promising to restart the oil and gas industry. Is it
Speaker 1: a bit of a contradiction there? Are you just making
Speaker 1: sure that we've got fingers in all of the pots.
Speaker 3: My mission is to create the most competitive priced energy
Speaker 3: in the OECD. I want New Zealand to have the
Speaker 3: most affordable energy in our comparable trading partner jurisdictions. So
Speaker 3: that's what I'm not known about. And for that to happen,
Speaker 3: we need to boost and shoot every arrow in the quiver. Now,
Speaker 3: gfthermal may prove to be a game changer in a
Speaker 3: fundamental way. If we can commercialize what's called deep seated
Speaker 3: supercritical energy, which has down at about five kilometers in
Speaker 3: the Earth, and the international experts have advised me, along
Speaker 3: with our own officials, if anyone can do it, the
Speaker 3: Keywis can do it. It is a bit of a
Speaker 3: moonbeam shot. However, such as the critical importance of energy,
Speaker 3: I think that the community should expect the government is
Speaker 3: willing to put capital at a risk and take on
Speaker 3: some of the long term punts, and without a doubt,
Speaker 3: to your thermal supercritical energy is one of them.
Speaker 4: Garcity is rewarded in terms of high prices instead of
Speaker 4: high profits or gent tailors. And one of the things
Speaker 4: we've observed in the market is that the price of
Speaker 4: electricity has been decoupled from the cost of actually producing it,
Speaker 4: So the cost of ectricity, the fourth prices of electricity
Speaker 4: are currently well above the long run cost of building
Speaker 4: new power stations and happened since twenty nineteen. And that's
Speaker 4: a good sign that the market isn't delivering those sort
Speaker 4: of outcomes that you'd expect from a competitive.
Speaker 1: Market in terms of gen Taylor's in this country. You
Speaker 1: mentioned power prices for KIWIS. Does there need to be
Speaker 1: a reform into how gen Taylors work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, gent Taylor's exist for net profit after tax.
Speaker 3: They're commercial profit seeking entities. They don't believe it's their
Speaker 3: role to deliver either affordable energy or energy security. And
Speaker 3: that's the trade off that we all entered into once
Speaker 3: John Key sold them to the share market. The position
Speaker 3: that I've always advocated is there needs to be more
Speaker 3: transparency in separation within the gent tailors. Their level of
Speaker 3: power rivals the Australian owned banks and look quite a
Speaker 3: professional relationship with them. They know, if I ever have
Speaker 3: my chance, I'm going to visit UTU on them on
Speaker 3: behalf of New Zealanders who are experiencing energy hardship and
Speaker 3: energy poverty. But at the moment I don't have enough
Speaker 3: votes and I don't have the authority to do that.
Speaker 3: It's the devistly complex area, this electricity area. We have
Speaker 3: an organization called the Electricity Authority. I dismissed them as
Speaker 3: chocolate teapots, although I've started to moderate my views and
Speaker 3: they are looking at different options as to what might
Speaker 3: be some smarter ways to regulate the energy sector and
Speaker 3: the gent tailors to improve petition. So we have more
Speaker 3: private sector investors. We have a diverse range of people
Speaker 3: creating energy, maybe closer to where the energy is actually consumed.
Speaker 3: And one thing that I'm looking at is the allocation
Speaker 3: of over one hundred million dollars into some of the
Speaker 3: lines companies in Northland, where we've got arguably the best
Speaker 3: solar and some of the best wind generating capacity. But
Speaker 3: the transmission pipe, the garden hose going to Auckland is
Speaker 3: literally a garden hose. It's not capable of transporting new
Speaker 3: sources of energy at volume.
Speaker 2: If we move on.
Speaker 1: You're also Oceans and Fisheries Minister, of course, so you
Speaker 1: need to be protecting the oceans but also advocating for fisheries.
Speaker 1: But that must be quite difficult, hey, because if you
Speaker 1: do something that benefits the oceans, the fisheries would presumably
Speaker 1: get pissed off, and then obviously vice versa. As we've seen,
Speaker 1: how does that all work? Should they be separated those portfolios?
Speaker 2: Do you think?
Speaker 3: Well, I don't remember there being an ocean's portfolio. I
Speaker 3: think it was an innovation that came in with labor.
Speaker 3: But I'm guided by what we campaigned on. I'm guided
Speaker 3: by our manifesto and we said that we were going
Speaker 3: to generate more jobs, more investment and revenue from a
Speaker 3: legacy industry called the commercial sea fishing industry. It's quite
Speaker 3: a complex area, as you rightly point out, because lots
Speaker 3: of litigation takes place. I mean, the litigiousness in the
Speaker 3: sector is akin to someone with a very drunken habit.
Speaker 3: It just seems to roll on and on, which is
Speaker 3: why I only want to see in the future responsible litigation,
Speaker 3: not vexatious, frivolous or reckless litigation. And that's why we're
Speaker 3: changing the law to restrict the ability of people to
Speaker 3: litigate against the fisheries decisions less it's tightly defined and
Speaker 3: relevant to a fisheries decision. Not saving every ecosystem, not
Speaker 3: saving the braughts, or trying to pile onto fisheries the
Speaker 3: responsibility for the broad health of the ocean around New Zealand.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're the ones out there though, right well.
Speaker 3: The men and women who eke out in existence, often
Speaker 3: in the big vessels, going away for six weeks at
Speaker 3: a time. They literally are taking their lives into the
Speaker 3: cup of their hand. All you need to do is
Speaker 3: watch those images of men and women going over the
Speaker 3: Graymouth Bar and off the west coast of the South
Speaker 3: Island to Taypotini. There is a very lucrative fishery. It's
Speaker 3: a dangerous wildlife industry. I had some experience in the
Speaker 3: fishing sector when I was a younger man, advocating for it.
Speaker 3: In some respects. The lessons I learned in the fishing
Speaker 3: industry have made me the politician who I am today.
Speaker 1: So you've announced reforms, obviously to the Fisheries Act. You
Speaker 1: mentioned it's the most significant for decades.
Speaker 2: What else have you done to support fisheries lately.
Speaker 3: Well, I've broadened my attention to both seafood farming and fisheries.
Speaker 3: Most of the seafood protein comes from fisheries and related
Speaker 3: resources that are farmed. It's a relatively small percentage that
Speaker 3: comes from wild caught fishery. But New Zealand has one
Speaker 3: of the most enviable fisheries systems in the world. There
Speaker 3: are quote a management system. So look, what I've sought
Speaker 3: to do since I've been the minister is bring some
Speaker 3: overdue change, the largest changes since nineteen eighty six. On
Speaker 3: the question of muscle farming and oyster farming. I extended
Speaker 3: all the permits by in large to twenty fifty, so
Speaker 3: people don't need to go and get any more permits.
Speaker 3: They can just put the money into the business and
Speaker 3: get on with running their business. I've initiated a body
Speaker 3: of work with mister David Seymour, my senior colleague. He's
Speaker 3: the deregulatory Minister, and we want to identify what rules
Speaker 3: and regulations need to change so we can farm trout
Speaker 3: and other freshwater species because we need to create new industries,
Speaker 3: we need to create new jobs, we need to build
Speaker 3: new exports and that's not going to happen unless we
Speaker 3: take risks. So it's quite a busy dance card. I'm
Speaker 3: on the downside. I need to be very careful that
Speaker 3: I explained to the New Zealand public, in particular the
Speaker 3: recreational fisheries sector, that these changes are not going to
Speaker 3: hobble their rights or their privileges.
Speaker 2: And in terms of this portfolio, Shane, what have you
Speaker 2: done to protect our oceans while you've been in charge.
Speaker 3: Well, that's been addressed mostly by the Foreign Affairs and
Speaker 3: Winston Peters he attended the Ocean's Conference. I mean, obviously
Speaker 3: New Zealand First has supported Honorable Tummer Portucker with his
Speaker 3: introduction of some reserves around the Hodaki Golf. I've closed
Speaker 3: down some fisheries whilst I've been the Minister, such as crayfish.
Speaker 3: I'm about to go out and consult and closing down
Speaker 3: the harvesting of crayfish off the entirety of the coast
Speaker 3: of Northland. Given that I come from Northland and I
Speaker 3: was born and bred on Kaianwana, you might imagine it's
Speaker 3: going to be quite a stiff experience. But that's a
Speaker 3: small example which shows that I don't shy away from
Speaker 3: making some of these decisions which will be to the
Speaker 3: benefit of our fishery resource and the community over the
Speaker 3: long term.
Speaker 2: What about bottom trolling? Why can't we just say no
Speaker 2: to that?
Speaker 3: Oh, well, that's because David Attenborough's documentary was a gross
Speaker 3: misrepresentation of what happens in New Zealand, and then all
Speaker 3: these sort of kind of social media critics and warriors
Speaker 3: mistakenly thought that our fishing industry is ruining our ecosystems
Speaker 3: by bottom trawling. The images on that documentary are not
Speaker 3: from New Zealand, and bottom trawling is a very skillful
Speaker 3: set of operations and it's easily catastrophized. But New Zealand
Speaker 3: doesn't actually apply bottom trawling to much of our economic zone.
Speaker 3: It's just some targeted areas, and a lot of the
Speaker 3: seamounts deeply located in the ocean, they're already protected. It
Speaker 3: is a key feature of how the industry operates at
Speaker 3: the moment, and with the advent and the expansion of cameras,
Speaker 3: I'm sure over time people's fears will be allayed. But
Speaker 3: it is an area you're right that is easily weaponized
Speaker 3: and exaggerated. But then I often find that the green
Speaker 3: main na drives people to catastrophize the one or three
Speaker 3: events that happen in the fishing industry which may be egregious,
Speaker 3: but they're not reflective of the behavior or the experience
Speaker 3: of the entire sector.
Speaker 1: Is I mean, if it is done so little though,
Speaker 1: there does the benefit of just saying yes, we're going
Speaker 1: to ban it outweigh the economic benefit of bottom trawling.
Speaker 3: Say yeah, well, I know that there is an agenda
Speaker 3: to ban it in New Zealand. I know that a
Speaker 3: number of people have been agitating to bann it in
Speaker 3: the Hodarky Golf that will not be happening for as
Speaker 3: long as I'm the Fisheries minister, why not once you
Speaker 3: bann one part of an activity in a certain area
Speaker 3: of the coastline, the fishing activity just moves to another
Speaker 3: area and the bottom trawling references which is not exclusively
Speaker 3: but it pertains to the Orange Ruffi fishery. And obviously
Speaker 3: the Orange Ruffi fishery has been very low in the
Speaker 3: past and quote dropped off substantially in order for it
Speaker 3: to recover. That's how the system works, and we're going
Speaker 3: to have to look at those options going forward because
Speaker 3: there is an issue obviously where the scientists and the
Speaker 3: officials in the industry are concerned about the state of
Speaker 3: part of the Orange ruffy fishery in the South Island.
Speaker 3: But you can't blame bottom trawling for that.
Speaker 5: Well, we'll have to wait and see when it comes
Speaker 5: to actually the devil being in the details here. But
Speaker 5: the idea of sustainability and Shane Jones is like fossil
Speaker 5: fuels and climate action, the two do not mix. And
Speaker 5: I think New Zealanders need to understand why this has
Speaker 5: been so controversial for so long, because ultimately our fitting
Speaker 5: industry is not run in a sustainable way. And Shane
Speaker 5: Jones wants to take the shackles off and see more
Speaker 5: of our oceans exploit it.
Speaker 1: You've been accused of being out of touch and favoring
Speaker 1: private or corporate interests while downplaying environmental concerns in favor
Speaker 1: of economic development.
Speaker 2: You must get sick of that, Shane.
Speaker 1: Why do you think it's such a bugbear and why
Speaker 1: do you think that you're accused of it so often?
Speaker 3: I just think it's the blood sport of politics. I
Speaker 3: think there's a new generation coming forward who've forgotten that
Speaker 3: milk comes from cows, that fish is a wildlife industry.
Speaker 3: I just accept it for the political mix. It's got
Speaker 3: more ubiquitous with social media. But for every person that's complaining,
Speaker 3: I can tell you there's ten other Kiwis who applaud
Speaker 3: and barracked me for being one of the plain, candid,
Speaker 3: articulate men in politics who says it as it is.
Speaker 3: It's like I said, I know that triggers responses, but
Speaker 3: then that's what politics is about. And I say to
Speaker 3: all my critics, meet me at the ballot box.
Speaker 2: So you're not a puppet for private interests.
Speaker 3: I'm a great supporter and promoter for investment, for jobs
Speaker 3: for economic growth. And I say to the viewers who
Speaker 3: are many and listeners to your program, we are going
Speaker 3: through some severe economic challenges. We have to become familiar
Speaker 3: and comfortable with making trade offs. And because our society
Speaker 3: has become so metropolitanized, far too many of my critics
Speaker 3: have forgotten that the wildlife industries, the farming industry, the
Speaker 3: growing industry, they represent the bulk of our export earnings.
Speaker 3: And New Zealand will never be self sufficient unless it
Speaker 3: can use its natural resources boost its income internationally. Because,
Speaker 3: to the best of my ability of sought to convince
Speaker 3: my critics living in Auckland, you don't grow rich by
Speaker 3: doing each other's laundry.
Speaker 1: Shame.
Speaker 2: Lastly, what does the future look like for you?
Speaker 1: Are you already thinking about campaign, you know for election
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six?
Speaker 2: Is now all go? Or do you get to wait
Speaker 2: a few months till next year?
Speaker 3: Well, obviously I've got my constitutional responsibilities as a cabinet minister,
Speaker 3: and most of those decisions, not all, are made under
Speaker 3: the law, so I can be held legally accountable for
Speaker 3: a number of my fisheries decisions and expansion of mining.
Speaker 3: As you know, New Zealand is now regarded as a
Speaker 3: consequence of the Fraser Institute analysis of mining destinations, New
Speaker 3: Zealand has gone from last to number fifteen in the
Speaker 3: whole world in terms of a desirable investment destination for mining.
Speaker 3: But that's what I was asked to do by the
Speaker 3: Prime Minister. That's what I was asked to do by
Speaker 3: our government. And I'm going to continue to expand footprint
Speaker 3: of jobs investment. I've got no time for that duo
Speaker 3: perched two hundred and fifty meters up in the sky
Speaker 3: on top of a coal mine down in the West Coast.
Speaker 3: I think that their beliefs have turned into a statement
Speaker 3: of personal arrogance and conceit, and now they're endangering all
Speaker 3: those jobs and that coal mine, and I just think
Speaker 3: that it's reckless and it's as indefensible that their personal
Speaker 3: luxury beliefs are now regarded as of such importance that
Speaker 3: it would wipe out hundreds of jobs on the West Coast.
Speaker 1: You can see where they're coming from, though. I mean,
Speaker 1: when we do talk about oil and gas and coal burning, etc.
Speaker 1: Then you've got a planet that's heating, You've got kids
Speaker 1: worried about their future due to climate change.
Speaker 2: We're getting bigger, scarier storms. We have a tsunami warning
Speaker 2: the other week. I mean, we do understand people's concerns
Speaker 2: when we talk about oil and gas and everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think that there's a toss up
Speaker 1: to be had between saying, look, we need this in
Speaker 1: order to have energy and be able to turn the
Speaker 1: lights on in the future. But here we do concede
Speaker 1: and say, look, we are looking at other options.
Speaker 3: I think often I get a bad rap. I'm the
Speaker 3: politician that's spent over two hundred million dollars dedicated to
Speaker 3: protecting our stock banks, to stop rivers from flooding, and
Speaker 3: I've been told by various regional councils if that money
Speaker 3: hadn't been allocated and spent my my good self areas
Speaker 3: such a Taradale would have been wiped out. I'm the
Speaker 3: guy at a time of fiscal hardship dedicated sixty odd
Speaker 3: million dollars to exploring for supercritical energy and if we
Speaker 3: can pull it off, it'll completely invert the price equation
Speaker 3: of New Zealand's energy. Also the guy funding the moment
Speaker 3: small communities from Stuart Island, Chatham Islands, the East Cape,
Speaker 3: Northland Community Renewable energy projects, but it's easier to focus
Speaker 3: on Shane Jones as someone who backs fossil fuels that's
Speaker 3: going to fry the planet. And look, you can't fight
Speaker 3: that level of emotional virtue signaling with facts, and that's
Speaker 3: what brings me out with my own brand of hyperbleon rhetoric.
Speaker 3: And all those bloodites that met their match and much
Speaker 3: to a Shane.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Shane, thanks.
Speaker 3: For having me. Bye.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 1: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 1: at enzidherld dot co dot MZD. The Front Page is
Speaker 1: produced by Ethan Sells and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 1: our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front Page
Speaker 1: on Iheartrate or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune
Speaker 1: in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.