MEDIA RELEASE

Saturday 16 November 2013
 
Dodgy Deals, Done Dirt Cheap

Hone Harawira, MANA Leader and MP for Te Tai Tokerau
 
Hone Harawira, MANA Leader and MP for Te Tai Tokerau today slammed the dodgy deal set up to bring a deep sea oil rig into NZ waters, off the Raglan coast.
 
“Texan oil giant Anadarko, who are bringing the rig here, are the same company that had to pay out $4 billion over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill."
 
“The offshore rigs we've had up till now have been in fairly shallow water and inspected every month” said Harawira “but in the deeper water the Texas cowboys need fear no government inspection. With 27 rigs soon to be set up around our coasts and little regulation, the chances of disaster increase hugely, and we’ve just heard that Anadarko is bringing an untested Liberian flagged oil rig in for the Raglan mission”
 
“Anadarko has also set up a $100,000 limited liability company based in the Cayman Islands, Anadarko NZ, to limit any potential cost to them - $100,000 wouldn’t even cover the cost of 5 minutes pollution from a major oil spill."
 
“The fact is that under National's 'Oil Spill Preparedness' plan, all Anadarko has to do is ‘lodge’ an environmental impact assessment and an oil well design plan, and get approval for a safety and discharge plan from the same people who approved Petrobras drilling in an earthquake fault zone."
 
“Anadarko’s operation is not available for public or parliamentary oversight. They just do their deal behind closed doors and away they go."
 
“One deep sea oil spill would mean the destruction of our pristine coastlines, the endangerment of thousands of square kilometres of fisheries, a massive hit on our $23 billion dollar tourism industry, and the end of our clean green image, and the end to our clean green image."
 
“This whole exercise is fraught with disaster, and MANA calls on all New Zealanders to band together to stop the threat of deep sea oil, all around Aotearoa."
 
ENDS

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