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Labour MP Nanaia Mahuta says the Government’s push to open up New Zealand’s waters to oil and gas exploration is increasingly against the public will.
The Hauraki-Waikato MP noted to hikoi moving south towards Waitangi as a symptom of wider unease.
She says while Labour had a historical association with coal and gold mining, the public sentiment favours a move away from fossil fuels and a reliance on carbon intense industry.
"So that certainly has an impact on coal and it has an impact on deep sea oil drilling, but the main consideration out in the ocean is that New Zealand doesn’t have a domestic response system if there was an environmental catastrophe and we need to look after our marine ecological system because people like to fish, we have a commercial fishing industry and that’s all what will be at stake if we don’t take better care of what happens out in the ocean," Ms Mahuta says.
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