Summarised by Centrist
The Taxpayers’ Union has written to MBIE chief executive Nic Blakeley demanding answers over what it says is an unjustified refusal to release key fuel security data.
The move follows a meeting last week between MBIE officials, Blakeley and the Taxpayers’ Union over the union’s Fuel Clock, a public dashboard that tracks New Zealand’s real-time fuel position using MBIE’s own published data.
The dispute centres on MBIE’s refusal to identify the fuel tankers and cargoes it counts as being “on water” to New Zealand. Taxpayers’ Union executive director Jordan Williams says officials keep invoking “commercial sensitivity” but have not explained what the actual sensitivity is.
“We’ve now had multiple meetings with MBIE. Each time we’ve asked a very basic question: what exactly is commercially sensitive about publishing the names of fuel tankers and their cargoes? And each time, we’ve received no answer.”
The union says its Fuel Clock adjusts MBIE’s figures for real-time fuel use and separates fuel physically in New Zealand from shipments still days or weeks away. It says that produces a materially lower picture of fuel availability than MBIE’s official “days of cover” measure.
Williams says the group has tested MBIE’s explanation with “industry contacts, a competition law expert, and even a major fuel company” and found no clear basis for withholding the vessel-level detail. “That leaves a simple conclusion: either the risk doesn’t exist, or MBIE is unwilling to explain it.”
The union also says MBIE’s descriptions of ships “on water” have been inconsistent. “One week we’re told ships ‘on water’ have left port. The next week we’re told they may not have.”
