If you are thinking about voting for Labour this election you may want to think carefully after the reality of an unexpected Labour Party off-shore oil and gas ban in 2018, was discussed at a Council meeting.

If you are thinking about voting for Labour this election you may want to think carefully after the reality of an off shore oil and gas ban in April 2018, which the Labour Government announced unexpectedly at that time, was discussed at a Council meeting last week.

Two of the Venture Taranaki team (VT) presented their Quarterly report to the Elected Officials. New Plymouth has major economic challenges and trends on all levels which are not looking good. A lot of work is being done by VT to attempt to build a strong replacement economy for Taranaki.

A question was asked of the Venture Taranaki team:

When the Labour Government introduced the offshore oil and gas ban, they announced they would support the city of New Plymouth to transition to a new economy to replace oil and gas. Did they deliver on that transition promise ?

The answer wasn’t very long and effectively said “No”.

A sudden, totally unexpected, immediate, ban on offshore oil and gas exploration was announced by the labour Government, they promised to replace the oil and gas jobs in Taranaki with local industry and high paying jobs, yet that promise has not been followed through on, or been successful.

• So, what are the economic stats this has brought to our city 8.5 years later ?

• And what is Venture Taranaki – not the Labour Politicians – trying to do about fixing the mess that has been created for the region ?

NZ Stats	New Plymouth Stats
NZ average economic growth 1.7%	New Plymouth economic growth 0.4%
NZ Employment has fallen 0.3%	New Plymouth Employment has fallen 1.1%. 1,700 oil and gas jobs have gone to date. Next year Methanex and OMV pull out of NZ. This is going to get worse.
	Infometrics NZ forecasts New Plymouth’s population will fall by 5,300+ people over the next 10 years.
The average NZ unemployment rate is 5.4%	New Plymouth’s average unemployment rate is 4.3%. This may be better than the NZ average as couples won’t qualify for a benefit if one person is still in work, as unemployment only counts benefit payments for “no income” households.

These stats are the reality of government policy and government promises when there is no action to go with those promises and words.

• Attached is a chart with more economic detail of NZ and the entire Taranaki Region. The red arrows show where Taranaki is not performing well.

You may want to share with others the reality of the economic conditions New Plymouth is struggling with. 

We also acknowledge that the NPDC, through Venture Taranaki, is attempting to reverse these conditions.

We have to say, if the enthusiasm of one of the presenters for Venture Taranaki last week is the benchmark, then the VT team are very enthusiastic about a good economic future for the Taranaki region.

The following are a few of the things VT are working on to try to rebuild a viable long term Taranaki economy:

They have been looking for ideas from cities overseas who have turned around their economies when an industry came to an end. Examples given were Aberdeen in Scotland and Newcastle in Australia.

The NPDC put seed money in to the creation of a local business Alliance Group last year, for local industry to work together, so they can deliver bigger projects that each individual company can’t do alone. Over 80 local companies have signed up for this Alliance Group and are now putting in money from their own companies to move the development of this group forward.

Venture Taranaki have been working with the Government and industry groups to attract opportunities to New Plymouth. In recent months they have been getting queries about New Plymouth’s capabilities. It was mentioned that Australia is getting to capacity with what they can produce with their engineering type industries. Overseas companies with upcoming projects have been discussing with VT the possibility of New Plymouth companies building here and then exporting the completed projects.

Contracts have not yet been signed, but enquiries have started.

This Industry Alliance Group has a lot of potential to attract good quality projects and retain high paying skilled jobs. It was mentioned though that overseas experience of rebuilding after an industry disappears takes a number of years, it does not happen quickly, but a start has been made.

Another topic discussed was scaling up land use for food and fibre that grows well in Taranaki. VT are looking at high value land use ideas with this. Trials have been run to do this on a small scale, but it was found that the individuals did not have the capacity to scale up to a profitable outcome on their own. Ways will be explored of how more people can work together to build high value growing opportunities and markets.

This is a link to the full VT Quarterly report if anyone is interested in more detail:

https://www.npdc.govt.nz/media/agwpjj0j/venture-taranaki-te-puna-umanga-trust-quarter-4-performance-report-to-30-june-2026.pdf

• This whole situation is again a reminder that the NPDC’s costs, debt and future plans must be realistic and must work alongside an expected downturn in the region – until any of the economic strategies being worked on can be seen to be paying off.

And, be careful of political promises being made before you vote this year, the future of the Taranaki region is already at risk because of undelivered promises that were made in the past.