In my small town fuel costs haven’t directly affected me too much. I walk to work anyway and we tend to go through one tank of fuel every three weeks. I feel for people who are dependent on commuting long distances via car though, especially through traffic.

I don’t see any return to the old prices being likely as globally we’ve been seeing systematic destruction of petrol production infrastructure in the Middle East and Russia, squeezing supply, and the wars that caused the destruction are only continuing. I think this represents a substantial economic motivation to support a few long term changes in NZ:

• As we are already seeing, people will purchase less petrol and seek alternatives such as public transport;
• Governments will adopt policies to support electrification of transport, logistics, agriculture, and industry (solar is already getting bipartisan support)
• Private businesses will make their own investments into electric infrastructure as it becomes more cost-effective for them to do so compared to running eg. diesel trucks or generators or boilers, or a fleet of petrol cars.
• single-use plastics made from petroleum products will become rare, and whichever materials scientists and chemical engineers can produce good replacements will have a product that will make millions.

As a fellow survivor of the Covid shenanigans I can also see this becoming a political shitshow of the highest order, with those opposed to change doing their best to claim that everything is fine and that everything should continue as it was.