95bFM Government ‘trying to basically lie to people’ on reason for offshore oil and gas exploration ban reversal
14 August, 2025
Interview by Sara McKoy, adapted by Soeun Kim
The Government has recently passed legislation reversing the 2018 ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration. The bill passed with 68 votes to 54, with all parties in the Government in support, and opposition parties against.
Climate Minister, Simon Watts, who was standing in for Resources Minister, Shane Jones, claimed that the ban had raised power prices.
The previous ban, implemented by former Labour Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, was a part of a plan to work towards a carbon-neutral future.
According to official analyses, this move, which is expected to increase Aotearoa’s greenhouse emissions by 14.2 million tonnes, has been heavily criticised by environmental organisations.
Executive Director of Greenpeace Aotearoa, Russel Norman, told 95bFM’s The Wire that the Government’s claim that power prices have increased due to the ban is misinformation.
“The Government was just trying to basically lie to people and confuse them about the electricity shortage due to the oil and gas exploration ban. It wasn't.”
Norman states that the shortage results from New Zealand’s long-term underinvestment in renewable generation. He emphasised that gas has constantly declined since its peak supply in 2001, including former Prime Minister John Key’s 2014 National-led government.
He believes this reversal will unlikely result in any new offshore oil and gas exploration permits.
“There's a lot of regulatory uncertainty with a change of government likely to see the ban back in place,” he says.
“[The Government has] already spent a lot of time looking for oil and gas and hasn't found much. There's not a lot of demand onshore in New Zealand for new gas.”
Norman says that over the last decade, onshore gas demand in the country has dropped by half, while the electrification of transport has hit its peak.
“From a climate change point of view, this is a good thing — we need to get off fossil fuels,” he adds.
He advocates for Aotearoa’s investment in renewable energy infrastructure, storage solutions and side management demands.
“If we electrify the transport network and replace that with renewable electricity generated in New Zealand, it's a tremendous boon for our economy because we don't have to spend five to eight billion dollars a year on imported transport energy and come up with all the foreign exchange to pay for that.”
