This year – and as happened in the past and will again in the future – the oil companies have justified petrol price increases in New Zealand with clutch of now familiar reasons. In 1990 they were under pressure to blunt the considerable anger at the sizeable price hikes. However, in fairness to the oil companies, in 1989-90 the cost of imported raw crude oil leapt from about $US20 barrel to well over $US30. Prices had not been so high since the ‘second oil shock’ in 1980. Nearly quarter century on the price has reached $US40 barrel, surging with high US demand and because of uncertainty about OPEC intentions coupled with severe Middle East instability. In New Zealand, the high oil prices are likely to fuel both the Reserve Bank’s official cash rate and the Consumers’ Price Index (CPI), and contribute to higher inflation rate than for some years.
Garrick Tremain, Otago Daily Times, 15 August 1990
From the NZ Cartoon Archive, Alexander Turnbull Library, P O Box 12349, Wellington, Tel/fax 04-474 3154
The national collection of cartoons and caricatures
