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Ryan Bridge: You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone

Author
Ryan Bridge ,
Publish Date
Fri, 13 Mar 2026, 6:31am
The Supreme Court has ruled climate change must be considered when offering oil and gas blocks for tender. Photo / Tania Whyte
The Supreme Court has ruled climate change must be considered when offering oil and gas blocks for tender. Photo / Tania Whyte

Ryan Bridge: You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone

Author
Ryan Bridge ,
Publish Date
Fri, 13 Mar 2026, 6:31am

We're learning a few hard truths this week and the old saying rings true - you don't know what you've got 'till its gone.

Parties on the left and the right all crying out for more oil.

Turns out, it's actually still quite important.

A decent supply of it at a stable price.

And we're a long way off from that strait opening and running at full capacity again.

Trump's talking victory. Winston told me this week the war will be over before people think.

But there are sea mines and rocket launchers and drones hitting that strait.

No shipping company, or insurer, is going near there for a while yet.

The uprising we were told would happen hasn't happened. We've go the old boss's son in charge.

And they've just killed his mum, dad and most of his family.

He's not giving up anytime soon, is he?

More important than oil is food. We've got the Wattie's plant closures.

The frozen vegetables are grown here. Peas and beans. Like peaches before them, there'll be some cheaper imported alternative filling the shelves.

The farmer's complaints? Regulation. They're drowning in it. Paperwork up the wazoo.

It was the same story with pork.

Again, you don't know what you've got till it's gone.

So once this crisis is over, perhaps we remember how important food and oil are to our daily lives and stop demonising the very people trying to keep our tummies and gas tanks full.

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