NZ First has promised to spend $1 billion surveying the ocean floor around New Zealand for oil and gas, saying it would help secure the country's fuel supply (RNZ).

Leader Winston Peters announced the policy at the party's campaign launch. He said fuel security was one of the biggest issues facing New Zealand, and that the country might have energy reserves on a similar scale to Norway's. Peters said within six years New Zealand could have a pathway to owning and controlling its own energy supply (RNZ).

The party also wants a royalty system where the government takes more than 50 percent of the revenue from any oil or gas extracted, once production is up and running (RNZ).

Greenpeace chief executive Russel Norman said the billion dollars should go to renewable energy like wind and solar instead. He called the fund a gamble that would not guarantee cheaper power (RNZ).

Norman said demand for oil and gas is falling both in New Zealand and overseas, pointing to the shift to electric vehicles in China (RNZ).

National's energy spokesperson Simeon Brown pointed out that Peters and Shane Jones had supported a ban on oil and gas exploration when they were in government with Jacinda Ardern (RNZ).

Greenpeace says New Zealand spent about $7 billion importing petrol and diesel for transport in 2025 (Greenpeace). The group says the country's electricity is already mostly generated from renewable sources like hydro, but about 60 percent of all energy used still comes from fossil fuels (Greenpeace).

The issue goes back to 2018, when the Labour-led government banned new oil and gas exploration everywhere except onshore Taranaki. Peters and Jones were part of that government. Now they are campaigning to reverse the ban. That switch gives their opponents an easy line of attack, and it would likely come up in coalition negotiations if NZ First holds the balance of power after the election.

Peters' idea is loosely based on Norway's approach, where the government owns a share of the country's oil and gas and puts the royalties into a large national savings fund. The proposed royalty rate above 50 percent would be high compared to other countries. Whether New Zealand actually has Norway-scale oil and gas reserves is a separate question. Peters' claim that the deep-sea basins have never been properly surveyed would need to be checked against work already done by New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals and earlier government agencies.

The broader context here is that the policy looks more like a negotiating position than a plan to spend money straight away. NZ First is signalling where it would push in coalition talks, and the $1 billion figure sets a benchmark for what it would ask of a future government. The royalty rate is the part most likely to get attention from the oil and gas industry, because it would directly affect how profitable any future extraction would be.

There is also a timing problem with Peters' six-year claim. Finding and developing oil or gas in deep water usually takes longer than six years, even when companies do find commercial amounts. The $1 billion would pay for surveying the seabed, not for actually extracting oil or gas. Royalties would only come in once production was running, which under normal industry timelines would fall outside the six years Peters talked about.

Both sides are responding to the same concern: New Zealand relies heavily on imported fuel. Peters says the answer is finding oil and gas locally. Norman says the answer is renewable energy and electric transport. The $7 billion import bill is the shared fact that makes both arguments resonate with voters.