non-negotiable<\/a>.<\/p>\nA spokesperson for the Prime Minister said that remained the case.<\/p>\n
![\"Chris](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JU59AO_260127_Chocolate_Fish_10_jpg.jpeg\")
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\nDefence minister Chris Penk said Saturday that New Zealand should have a “conversation” on its anti-nuclear stance.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone\n<\/p>\n
“As the Defence Minister stated in his answer, New Zealand’s nuclear-free position has not changed and it will not be changing,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson confirmed National would not have an election policy this year to change New Zealand’s nuclear stance either.<\/p>\n
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said Penk’s comments came shortly after the Prime Minister had expressed an openness to looking at fusion, as part of the government’s “and, and, and” approach to exploring energy options.<\/p>\n
“A few weeks ago we had Christopher Luxon saying that National was open to nuclear-powered generation in New Zealand, now you’ve got Chris Penk as Minister of Defence saying we’re open to nuclear propulsion for Navy ships,” Hipkins said.<\/p>\n
“It all paints a picture of a National government that thinks nuclear is an option for New Zealand. New Zealand’s been proudly nuclear-free and we should stay that way.”<\/p>\n
Hipkins said New Zealanders were more worried about how they could pay their power bills, fill up their cars, and afford to go to the supermarket.<\/p>\n
“They’re not lying in bed at night thinking, gosh, I wonder if New Zealand should rethink its nuclear-free stance.”<\/p>\n
Penk also told Bloomberg that New Zealand was on track to meet it’s goal of doubling the defence budget to 2 percent of GDP.<\/p>\n
The war in Iran had highlighted the “perils of instability” and could lead the government to bring forward the timeline for reaching that goal, he said.<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christopher Luxon has said New Zealand’s non-nuclear stance was non-negotiable. Photo: RNZ \/ Louis Dunham The Prime Minister’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-455279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Christopher](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JPOB9O_Image_2_jfif.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n