29 July 2014

National’s desperate oil drilling agenda exposed

A Wall Street Journal article exposing the Government’s attempts to lure deep sea oil drillers to New Zealand shows National will stop at nothing to open up our coastlines to deep sea oil, the Green Party said today.

The article outlines how National brought 10 oil company executives to New Zealand at the taxpayers’ expense during the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

The executives sailed, wine-tasted and were reassured that New Zealand’s regulations make our waters a great place to explore for oil.

“The article exposes National’s almost sycophantic efforts to woo oil executives and open up our coastlines to oil drilling,” said Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman.

“Simon Bridges seems happy to give oil executives first class treatment while our precious environment gets third class treatment.

“As well as using tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money subsidising oil exploration, we now find out National has been spending possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars wining and dining oil executives.

“This is a classic case of National’s crony capitalism and I think it would make many New Zealanders very uncomfortable.

“By ingratiating himself to big oil, Simon Bridges has shown once again he does not care about New Zealand’s beaches, coastlines, environment and wildlife.

“Bridges needs to come clean and tell taxpayers exactly how much of their money he’s been splashing about trying to get drilling rigs off our coast.”

The Green Party announced over the weekend that it would ban deep sea oil drilling in New Zealand.

“Voters have a real choice this election. National and its pollution economy, or the Green Party’s plan for a cleaner, smarter economy, under which our beaches remain open for swimming, not closed for oil spills,” said Dr Norman.

“We will protect our beaches by keeping the deep sea oil genie in the bottle.

“There are cleaner, smarter, ways to achieve a prosperous New Zealand than risking our beautiful beaches.

“New Zealand’s future is in clean energy that creates thousands of new green jobs and protects the things we love.”

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