Greens predicted petrol would be $10 a litre by 2018

A reader reminded me of this release by Russel Norman in 2008:

Predictions from prestigious Australian research institute CSIRO that petrol could cost up to AUS$8 – about NZ$10 – per litre within a decade means we need to rapidly change course to avoid serious economic disarray, Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman says.

“Petrol at that price would make the Government’s entire motorway building project a white elephant – modern day Easter Island statues. Our new motorways would be monuments to short sightedness and profligate waste of resources.

“Governments even contemplating building motorways like the billion dollar-plus Transmission Gully project in Wellington or the $2 billion Waterview tunnel project in Auckland are seriously out of touch with reality,” Dr Norman says.

The economic disarray would have come if we had followed Dr Norman’s advice and did our transport planning on an assumption of $10/litre petrol.

If the Greens had intellectual consistency, they would now come out and say that Waterview was justified, as the cost of petrol is now under $2/litre and likely to stay there for years.

“We have no choice but to move to a far less oil-dependent economy, because rising prices will give us no choice.

The Green movement have a history of predicting massive shortages and associated price rises of natural resources, and being basically wrong every time.