RODNEY HIDE: New Zealand First’s Epic U-Turn on Oil and Gas
- Administrator
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
Winston Peters and Shane Jones have executed one of the most shameless
policy pirouettes in modern New Zealand politics. From enforced
supporters of Jacinda Ardern’s offshore oil and gas exploration ban to
self-appointed champions promising a $1 billion taxpayer-funded
drill-baby-drill bonanza, NZ First has shown once again that principle
is negotiable when the baubles of office are on the table.
In April 2018, Ardern dropped her bombshell: an immediate ban on new
offshore oil and gas exploration permits. Bound by Cabinet collective
responsibility, Peters (then Deputy Prime Minister) and Jones
(Regional Economic Development Minister) stood behind the policy in
public, despite clear private discomfort. They traded the future of
the energy sector for ministerial titles and coalition perks. That was
the price of power in 2018.
Two men kept their jobs; hundreds of kiwis lost theirs.
Fast forward to 2023. Out of Parliament and licking their wounds,
Peters and Jones spent years on the hustings denouncing the ban as
“economic vandalism.” They returned to government in the three-way
coalition and immediately secured the repeal as a bottom line. Jones,
handed the Resources portfolio, set about dismantling the policy he
once helped enforce.
The pivot didn’t stop at repeal. In May 2025, Jones rolled out a $200
million Crown co-investment fund to de-risk new gas developments. By
August 2025, the Crown Minerals Amendment Act had formally buried the
2018 ban. And this week Peters upped the ante: an election year
promise of a $1 billion National Subsurface Development Survey to map
offshore basins and unlock “Norway-scale” wealth for the state.
There is something almost comical about how politicians reach for a
billion dollars the moment to signal seriousness. As an MP I used to
explain in speeches a billion dollars: a bundle of $100 bills is
$10,000 and is a centimetre high. A metre is a million. A billion?
That’s a kilometer high stack of $100 bills. I had one grizzled
Southland farmer still looking confused. I asked if he could now
picture a billion. He replied: “No, sir — I’m still trying to imagine
a $100 bill.”
Yet here we are. NZ First’s latest promise is another billion dollars
of taxpayer money to chase the very resources they helped lock away
just years earlier. The same party that sold its soul for Cabinet
seats in 2017 now positions itself as the great defender of energy
security and provincial jobs.
This is classic Peters: ruthless pragmatism dressed up as nationalism.
In 1996, the price of supporting National wasn’t just the baubles — it
was a $5 billion in extra spending, an eye-watering sum at the time.
It wasn’t even determined where the money was to go. It was just to
be spent.
Such transactional politics is what MMP delivers. It is especially
evident with a party in the middle prepared always to negotiate
between National and Labour. There has never been an accounting of
the cost of the baubles of office but it is many, many billions. We
vote for it. And we pay for it. Over and over.
Rodney Hide is a former Minister and ACT Party leader
The art of duplicity is NZ 1st's greatest asset... in 2018, Jones stood on stage nodding away to Ardern - he'd been given $3B of our money to squander after all... now he & Peters want another $B to "map" what many knew was already there... but in 2018 they'd said no more...
Well, the sensible thinking person would say to NZ 1st - no more...
Well perhaps we will see what he has in mind when he starts campaigning on the parties policies. Yes he was cheated on after going with Labour under JA this time if people read correctly he has said no going with Labour if C Hipkins is leader which gives Labour an out but would it happen. Marine mining was to be let out to foreigners who could wreck havoc on marine life its bad enough we are the only country still bottom trawling in the Pacific but then SJones has a finger in the Fishing Industries pie. C Luxon is running the Nats into the ground the other two coalition parties still have some tweaking to do which hopefully the…
Andy Espersen comments :
You state "Winston Peters and Shane Jones have executed one of the most shameless
policy pirouettes in modern New Zealand politics."
Winston has absolutely nothing to be ashamed about - I wish we had more like him : A man offering himself as a politician for NZ Parliament for a lifetime - being elected at almost every election by NZ voters; and sincerely endeavouring to vote according to his conscience on the manifold problems of the day. Proudly being his own man always. He is a NZ political phenomenon - a proof of democracy working as it should.
Yes, this time round he is on to a winner - and this certainly is reflected in the…
Things have changed since 1918. People are not so concerned about the "climate change crisis" that seems to not be happenning. Most people have more practical and immediate issues like the costs of living to worry about. The dream of abundent electricity from solar and wind has not come true and is unlikely to. Our depenency on imported fuels was obviously a big mistake.
It is difficult to predict the outcome of this year's election. The last one was more easy because Jacindamania had turmed to Jacinda (and Labour) phobia. National, ACT and NZ1st promised real reforms of our dysfunctional, "woke" government institutions. They promised producrive workers a more fair share 9f the wealth their efforts produce. They promised to address the inequity of ancestral privilege for some…
Good old Winston. The bait has been cast.
Hopefully the fish are somewhat wiser than they were nine years ago.