New Zealanders are paying through the nose for petrol, watching their living standards erode and being told that international events are to blame. Meanwhile, petroleum companies collect their margins, governments collect their taxes, and commercial banks collect interest on money they largely create themselves. We closed our only oil refinery, discouraged exploration and surrendered essential economic capabilities. Perhaps it's time to stop asking why everything costs so much and start asking who benefits from keeping it that way.
Follow the Money. Always.
There is an old saying that remains remarkably effective when examining political and economic decisions: follow the money.
Not the speeches. Not the carefully rehearsed explanations. Not the promises delivered from parliamentary podiums about helping struggling families.
Follow the money.
Every time a New Zealander pulls into a service station, opens the fuel cap and watches the dollars climb faster than the litres, two powerful interests are being paid.
The petroleum industry takes its share. The Government takes its share.
And the motorist? The motorist gets the bill.
According to the Commerce Commission's March 2026 fuel-pricing report, taxes and levies accounted for approximately 49% of the average retail price of regular petrol during 2025.
Almost half.
Yet we are expected to believe that governments are powerless spectators whenever petrol prices rise.
Really?
The Government's Petrol Addiction
Let's ask the question politicians would rather avoid.
Why would a government that depends on substantial fuel-related revenue be enthusiastic about permanently reducing the cost of petrol?
Petrol excise is charged per litre, so higher prices do not automatically increase that particular tax. But GST is calculated on the selling price, including excise, meaning the Government collects more GST per litre when the pump price rises.
There are offsets. Higher fuel bills can reduce spending elsewhere, and lower consumption can reduce excise receipts. A higher pump price does not necessarily produce a net windfall for the Crown.
But that is precisely why the public deserves transparent figures rather than political platitudes.
How much additional GST is collected when international fuel prices surge? How much is offset elsewhere? And what happens to the revenue?
Why is there so little political appetite for a serious examination of the entire fuel-tax structure?
The Government can express sympathy for motorists all it likes. Sympathy doesn't reduce the price displayed on the pump.
Policy does.
And when almost half the average price of regular petrol consists of taxes and levies, the Government cannot pretend it has no part in the equation.
Marsden Point: The Day We Surrendered Control
If there is one decision that should haunt New Zealand's political establishment, it is the closure of the Marsden Point oil refinery.
In March 2022, New Zealand stopped refining oil on its own soil.
Decades of industrial capability were brought to an end. A facility that formed part of the country's strategic energy infrastructure was converted into an import terminal.
We were told the economics had changed. That importing finished fuel was commercially preferable. That the market could deliver what the country required.
And perhaps it could, under normal conditions.
But national security is not something that should be measured solely by the commercial balance sheet of a private company.
The refinery's operator and shareholders made the closure decision. The Government did not directly order it. Nevertheless, the state had a responsibility to assess the strategic consequences and decide whether intervention was justified.
What happened instead?
New Zealand became entirely dependent on overseas refineries for its finished petrol, diesel and aviation fuel.
We still need tankers. We still need shipping routes. We still need foreign suppliers. And now we need overseas refining capacity as well.
Marsden Point processed predominantly imported crude, so retaining it would not have insulated us from global oil prices or international shipping disruption.
But it would have preserved a capability we no longer possess.
That distinction matters.
A sovereign nation should be extremely reluctant to surrender essential industrial infrastructure that could take billions of dollars and years to replace.
We did it anyway.
And successive governments have yet to present New Zealanders with a convincing long-term answer to the loss.
Exploration: The Politics of Making Ourselves Weaker
Then came another extraordinary policy decision.
In 2018, the Labour-led Government prohibited new offshore oil and gas exploration permits.
Existing permits were not simply cancelled, but the signal to prospective investors was unmistakable: New Zealand was turning away from new offshore petroleum exploration.
Whatever the environmental intentions, the economic consequences deserved serious examination.
Petroleum exploration is not an industry that can be switched on and off according to the political mood of the day. It requires capital, specialist skills, geological research and years of confidence in the regulatory environment.
The prohibition was reversed in 2025, with a new offshore exploration permit announced in July 2026.
But reversing a law does not reverse eight years of uncertainty overnight.
Investment does not return merely because a minister announces that the welcome mat has been put back outside.
Meanwhile, New Zealand continues to export domestically produced crude oil while importing all the refined petroleum products that keep its vehicles, farms, aircraft and businesses operating.
What an extraordinary position for an island nation to place itself in.
We have resources. We have expertise. We once had refining capability.
And yet we have constructed an energy system that leaves us profoundly exposed to decisions made thousands of kilometres away.
Was this really the best we could do?
War Abroad. Profits at Home.
The international oil industry provides a revealing illustration of how energy disruption can produce enormous financial winners.
According to RT, citing an analysis attributed to The New York Times, more than 50 American oil companies earned approximately US$130 billion in profits between April and September 2026.
The corresponding figure for the previous year was less than US$47 billion.
Nearly three times as much.
The report attributes the surge largely to the disruption of energy supplies associated with the war involving Iran.
While motorists and businesses paid substantially more for fuel, major petroleum producers and refiners enjoyed extraordinary earnings.
And here in New Zealand?
We should be asking exactly the same questions about the profits earned by companies operating in our fuel market.
Have their margins increased? By how much? What proportion of higher pump prices reflects wholesale costs, transport, taxes and company margins? And how much additional revenue has the Crown actually collected?
We should not assume that New Zealand fuel companies have enjoyed the same profit increases as their American counterparts without examining their accounts.
But neither should we accept bland assurances that everything is simply the unavoidable consequence of international markets.
Show us the numbers.
All of them.
A Convenient Arrangement?
Here is where the argument becomes uncomfortable.
The Government requires revenue. Petroleum companies require profitable sales. Motorists require fuel.
One of those groups has very little choice.
The motorist.
Most New Zealanders cannot simply abandon their vehicles tomorrow. Farmers cannot stop harvesting. Freight operators cannot stop delivering food. Tradespeople cannot stop travelling to jobs.
Fuel is not a luxury for much of the country. It is an economic necessity.
That makes the petroleum market an extraordinarily important area of public policy.
It also makes the relationship between government taxation, industry profitability and consumer affordability worthy of constant scrutiny.
Does this prove that politicians and petroleum executives have secretly conspired to keep petrol expensive?
No.
But must New Zealanders produce evidence of a secret agreement before questioning a system that appears to serve powerful financial interests more comfortably than ordinary households?
Absolutely not.
The real scandal may not require a conspiracy at all.
It may simply be a succession of governments accepting arrangements that generate revenue, preserve established commercial structures and leave the public carrying the financial risk.
That is a political failure worth investigating in its own right.
And Then There's the Banking System
If our energy dependence is troubling, our monetary arrangements deserve an equally serious examination.
Consider this.
New Zealand has its own currency.
Its own central bank.
Its own government.
Yet most of the money circulating throughout the economy is created by private commercial banks when they make loans.
That is not a conspiracy theory. It is a feature of modern banking acknowledged by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
When a commercial bank approves a loan, it generally creates a matching deposit in the borrower's account.
New deposit money has entered the economy.
The borrower then repays the loan, with interest.
And there lies the question.
Why should the creation of so much of our national purchasing power depend upon private lending decisions that generate interest income for commercial banks?
The banking system performs important functions. Banks assess risk, allocate credit, facilitate payments and operate under regulatory and capital requirements. They cannot create unlimited money without consequences.
But that does not mean the present system should be immune from scrutiny.
When money creation is closely tied to private lending, credit can flow heavily towards existing assets, including property, rather than necessarily supporting new productive capacity.
The result can be rising asset prices, greater household indebtedness and increasing dependence on the financial sector.
For a country struggling with housing affordability, productivity and infrastructure investment, that is not a minor consideration.
It goes to the heart of how our economy functions.
Are We Renting Our Own Money?
Think about the absurdity that appears to confront the ordinary citizen.
New Zealand has a sovereign currency, yet the Government borrows through interest-bearing securities while commercial banks create much of the deposit money used throughout the economy.
Why?
Why should a nation capable of issuing its own currency be so dependent on interest-bearing financial arrangements to fund long-term development?
There are serious economic answers to that question. Government bonds serve monetary and financial functions, the Reserve Bank creates central-bank money, and unconstrained monetary financing could generate inflation and undermine confidence in the currency.
Nor is every New Zealand dollar literally borrowed from a commercial bank. That would be an inaccurate description of the system.
But acknowledging those complexities should be the beginning of a public debate, not the end of it.
Could New Zealand develop better mechanisms for financing productive infrastructure?
Could public investment be structured to deliver stronger long-term returns without excessive dependence on private credit?
Could our financial system be encouraged to support industry, innovation and productive enterprise rather than continually expanding lending against existing property?
And why are these questions so rarely central to political debate?
We spend enormous amounts of time arguing over how the Government should divide the economic pie.
Far less attention is paid to who creates the money, who controls the credit, and who receives the interest.
Different Industries. The Same Dependence.
Petroleum and banking might appear to be separate issues.
They are not.
Both sit at the foundations of New Zealand's economic life.
Energy moves our goods, powers our businesses and enables the productive economy to function.
Money and credit determine how that activity is financed, how investment is allocated and who ultimately carries the burden of debt.
Both systems are heavily influenced by large commercial institutions.
Both operate within frameworks created, regulated or tolerated by successive governments.
And in both cases, ordinary New Zealanders are expected to accept that the arrangements are simply the natural order of things.
Perhaps it is time we stopped accepting that.
A nation should not measure its economic success solely by corporate profitability, bank balance sheets or the amount of tax revenue flowing into Wellington.
It should measure success by the prosperity, independence and productive strength of its people.
Successive Governments Have Questions to Answer
This is not a criticism that belongs exclusively to Labour, National or any single coalition.
The decisions have accumulated over decades.
One government restricts exploration. Another reverses the restriction.
A strategically important refinery closes. Governments change, but the lost capability remains.
Fuel taxation continues. Energy dependence continues. Private-bank credit creation continues.
And the public is told to be patient.
Patient while the price of living rises.
Patient while businesses struggle with operating costs.
Patient while households take on more debt.
Patient while politicians explain why the country cannot afford the infrastructure, services and productive investment it needs.
At what point do we ask whether the economic model itself deserves examination?
Not another working group designed to produce a report that disappears into a ministerial filing cabinet.
A serious, transparent, independent examination of New Zealand's energy security, fuel taxation, petroleum-market competition, monetary arrangements and long-term economic sovereignty.
Put the numbers on the table.
Publish the policy advice.
Identify the beneficiaries.
Explain the decisions.
And let New Zealanders judge whether their interests have truly been served.
Will This Make New Zealand Stronger?
That is the test every government should be required to answer.
Did closing Marsden Point make New Zealand stronger?
Did restricting petroleum exploration improve our national resilience?
Does the current fuel-tax structure deliver the best balance between public revenue and economic affordability?
Does our banking system direct enough credit towards productive investment, or have we allowed too much of our economic future to become dependent upon debt and rising asset values?
These are not fringe questions.
They are questions about sovereignty, prosperity and the ability of a nation to control its own economic destiny.
New Zealand does not need to abandon international trade, private enterprise or commercial banking to become more independent.
It needs governments willing to challenge established arrangements when those arrangements no longer deliver sufficiently for the public.
It needs policies that reward production, encourage investment, secure essential supplies and make economic resilience a national priority.
Above all, it needs political leadership prepared to place the long-term interests of New Zealanders ahead of the convenience of the status quo.
The Real Cost of Doing Nothing
The greatest danger is not simply that petrol will remain expensive.
It is that New Zealanders will become so accustomed to economic dependence that they stop questioning it.
That we will accept foreign refining as inevitable.
Accept rising fuel costs as unavoidable.
Accept ever-growing private debt as normal.
Accept that governments must continually borrow and tax without seriously debating alternative ways of strengthening productive national wealth.
And accept that ordinary households must shoulder the consequences of decisions over which they have little influence.
We should be demanding better.
Because the wealth of a nation is not measured by how much money its citizens can be persuaded to borrow, how much tax can be extracted from essential purchases, or how much profit can be earned from their dependence.
It is measured by what the nation can produce, what it can sustain and how securely its people can live.
New Zealanders do not exist to provide a captive revenue stream for governments, petroleum companies or banks.
Those institutions are supposed to serve the economy.
And the economy is supposed to serve the people.
Perhaps it is time we reminded them.