{"id":534514,"date":"2026-07-20T03:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T03:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/534514\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T03:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T03:12:09","slug":"nz-firsts-1b-pledge-for-oil-and-gas-exploration-better-spent-on-renewables-greenpeace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/534514\/","title":{"rendered":"NZ First’s $1b pledge for oil and gas exploration better spent on renewables – Greenpeace"},"content":{"rendered":"

A climate activist says New Zealand First’s billion-dollar pledge for oil and gas exploration would be better spent on investing in renewables.<\/p>\n

New Zealand First announced at the weekend<\/a> it would explore deep sea basins around the country for oil and gas if elected, saying that would shore up the country’s fuel security.<\/p>\n

The party would invest an initial $1b into a national survey fund.<\/p>\n

Greenpeace chief executive Russel Norman said that money should instead be spent on investing in renewable electricity generation.<\/p>\n

“That would actually give us energy sovereignty. It would mean cheaper energy and it would mean energy which doesn’t destroy the climate.”<\/p>\n

New Zealand had a “great opportunity for energy sovereignty” by investing more in renewables, Norman said.<\/p>\n

The billion-dollar fund was a gamble, and wouldn’t guarantee power prices coming down, he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s a billion dollars you’d give to oil companies in the gamble that they might find something which might then be available in a decade’s time, and then would destablise the climate.”<\/p>\n

Demand for oil and gas in New Zealand and worldwide was dropping, he said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve already seen it massively in China, with the electrification of transport. We’re just starting to see it here.”<\/p>\n

At New Zealand First’s campaign launch on Sunday, leader Winston Peters said one of the most concerning issues facing the nation was fuel security and supply<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Peters said New Zealand potentially held Norway-scale energy prospects which had never been properly surveyed.<\/p>\n

“If we identify those reserves in our basins, we will have the ability to utilise the natural resources we have to make our country secure, prosperous and to build real resilience.”<\/p>\n

He said within six years, the country could have a pathway to own and control its own supply of energy.<\/p>\n

The party would place a royalty above 50 percent on all extractions as production matured.<\/p>\n

National energy spokesperson Simeon Brown said the policy was a reminder that Winston Peters and Shane Jones supported a ban on oil and gas when in government with Jacinda Ardern.<\/p>\n

“New Zealand had a thriving oil and gas industry, before Winston Peters and Shane Jones did a deal with labour and the Greens to ban offshore exploration.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A climate activist says New Zealand First’s billion-dollar pledge for oil and gas exploration would be better spent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-534514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534514","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=534514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}