New Zealand First leader Winston Peters used his party's campaign launch in Auckland on Saturday 18 July to announce a $1 billion plan to search for oil and gas offshore, making fossil fuels a central part of the party's election pitch.

The policy, called the National Subsurface Development Survey, would spend $1 billion surveying Aotearoa's offshore basins — large underwater areas where oil and gas may be found (Stuff). The idea is to build a single national map showing where energy, geothermal heat, and CO₂ storage sites are located, so that future governments and companies know what is under the seabed (Interest.co.nz). NZ First says it will campaign on the survey at the upcoming election (NZ Herald).

Peters called the plan a "game changer" and said it could happen "within six years" (RNZ). He criticised both National and Labour, saying they had focused on things like solar panels instead of dealing with the real question of energy supply.

The two major parties gave mixed responses. Labour does not support the plan. National would not firmly back it, with energy spokesperson Simeon Brown saying only that National already supports oil and gas exploration (RNZ). Under New Zealand's MMP voting system, small parties usually need a larger coalition partner to get their policies through. National is generally more open to exploration than Labour, but its refusal to explicitly back this specific survey leaves Peters without a clear partner for it.

The campaign launch wrapped up NZ First's convention, which drew the most delegates in the party's history (RNZ). The party is gaining support across all polls, going against the usual pattern of small parties losing ground after joining government. Former National MP Harete Hipanga-Brownlie also appeared at the convention, now standing as a New Zealand First candidate.

NZ First MPs have been building towards this policy for months. Shane Jones, in a speech published by the party after a public meeting in New Plymouth, talked about the economic fallout from reduced oil and gas activity (NZ First). On the party's YouTube channel, Jones said "Labour destroyed the entire energy ecosystem by cancelling the oil and gas sector." The party's website separately calls for removing the ban on oil and gas exploration as part of a broader page on geothermal energy and fisheries reform (NZ First). Green and NZ First MPs have already clashed publicly over the exploration ban on TVNZ Breakfast (1News/YouTube).

The bigger question is whether NZ First can actually get this done. The party is polling well and drew record convention numbers, but the $1 billion survey needs either enough votes to govern alone or a coalition partner willing to back it. National's cautious response suggests it does not want to commit to a specific spending promise before negotiations start. Labour's opposition makes the path even narrower. Peters's six-year timeframe also signals that even with support, the surveying would take longer than one election cycle.

Former United Future leader Peter Dunne publicly reacted to the campaign launch and the oil and gas policy on the Weekend Collective podcast (iHeart). The party also published video of the full campaign launch on its Facebook page (NZ First/Facebook).

For those who follow Parliament closely, the pattern is familiar. Peters is running a campaign designed to give himself maximum bargaining power in coalition talks, and the oil and gas survey is a distinctive, fully costed policy that neither major party can easily take over or ignore. Whether it makes it through those negotiations is another matter. National's preference for its own exploration approach and Labour's opposition mean the survey's future likely depends on post-election deal-making, not the campaign itself.