Press Release

Makin’ it EEZ to Desp-oil Our Beaches

MANA Leader Hone Harawira

Thursday 19th July

“New Zealand is one step closer to opening up our seabed for offshore drilling” says MANA Party Leader Hone Harawira following the second reading of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and Continental Shelf Bill. “For the second time in a week, government is ignoring Maori rights to natural resources - water, and now, oil and gas”.

“This bill is about the unrestricted exploitation of oil and gas” said Harawira “and the further alienation of Maori rights to the seabed that government consistently refuses to acknowledge”.

“Petrobras will see this bill as an incentive to bring back to our coastline the kind of ‘exploration and drilling’ that has already caused a dozen oil spills of more than 100,000 litres each (http://www.ib-sm.org/CasePetrobras.pdf)”.

“That the National Party is pushing this bill is no surprise. That the Maori Party continues to support it though, is hard to understand”.

“There is nothing in the bill to guarantee iwi must be consulted, and even though the bill includes a Treaty clause, recent practice shows that this government has the same contempt for the Treaty that they have for the Tribunal”.

“New Zealand should not allow the open-ended deals that oil companies enjoy in other parts of the world, and unless we can get some cast-iron guarantees that the necessary environmental protections will be in place we should not even be contemplating ventures as dangerous as off-shore drilling”.

“Those protections were not there when Petrobras came to the Raukumara Basin, and they are not in this bill either”.

“It is for all of these reasons and more that MANA opposed this bill at first and second reading and will do so at third reading as well”.

“I urge the Maori Party to join with MANA in supporting the hopes and aspirations of the Maori people for the retention of their rights to the Foreshore and Seabed, and to oppose this bill at third reading” said Harawira. “Somehow I doubt that that will happen”.

ENDS

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