When Prime Minister Chris Hipkins took over at the start of this month he tossed a number of policies out the window, saying the Government had been trying to do "too much, too fast".
The merger of Television New Zealand and RNZ was dropped, along with the Government’s social insurance scheme and biofuel mandates.
Mr Hipkins said the Government would refine its Three Waters reforms.
It was refocusing its priorities and putting cost-of-living increases at the forefront of a new direction, he said.
The Lake Onslow project, part of the NZ Battery Project, would allow New Zealand to generate emission-free hydroelectricity through dry years, which presently requires the use of the coal-fuelled Huntly power station when existing hydro lakes get low.
Its price tag, though, has been estimated to be as high as $8billion and National’s energy and resources spokesman Stuart Smith has said public investment was unnecessary and undesirable.
Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment energy and resource markets policy director Susan Hall said the now-delayed NZ Battery Project’s Phase 1 feasibility studies, which include Lake Onslow, remained on track to be considered by Cabinet early this year.
She expected the energy and resources minister would announce the outcome of Cabinet’s decision soon after a decision had been made.
When asked if the project was a possible casualty of the Government’s present focus, she said the ministry "works for the government of the day and their policy priorities".
A spokeswoman for energy and resources minister Megan Woods was not drawn on that question, nor the timing of a decision.
"All I can say at this point is that ministers don’t normally say when items are going to Cabinet as agendas can change," she said.
University of Waikato school of science associate professor Earl Bardsley, who first came up with the Lake Onslow plan, said the Phase 1 studies were first expected at some point this month.
However, he now expected delays due to the emergency created by Cyclone Gabrielle, or for political timing in an election year.
If the Lake Onslow project passed Phase 1, Phase 2 would involve creating a detailed business case for the project, "which really should include regional advantages and climate adaptation".
The present emergency might go for or against Lake Onslow, he said.
The Government could say that with so much funding needed now for clean-up and support, the NZ Battery Project would be put on hold until after the election.
"Or they may say that the floods indicate we are entering a changing climate which makes it more urgent than ever that we start the process to make it through dry years emission-free as far as electricity generation is concerned."
He said he hoped that Phase 2 Lake Onslow studies — "if Onslow is still in the mix" — would include identification of possible opportunities for regional water management and environmental offsets.
"The Onslow scheme, if it proceeds, will massively disrupt the farming families impacted and flood the remnant wetlands not already flooded by the present Onslow reservoir.
"As some measure of regional compensation, Onslow pumped storage should leave as much lasting positive regional legacy as possible."
To that end, he said the project could include a 3.1km tunnel for discharging Lake Onslow water into the Taieri River headwaters.
It could also include a 4km tunnel to allow Onslow water to be discharged into the Greenland reservoir, for supplementary irrigation support for farms in the southern Ida valley and the lower Manuherikia valley.
There was also an opportunity for a 17km tunnel to Deep Creek to future-proof the Dunedin city water supply against extreme drought, he said.
