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Green MP Marama Davidson says Statoil’s abandonment of its exploration permit in the far north is a sign it's time to pull the plug on offshore oil and gas prospecting around the whole country.
The Norwegian-owned company says three years of data indicated a low chance of making an economic oil or gas discovery, and it wasn’t driven off by protests.
But Ms Davidson says iwi and the wider community made it clear the oil companies are not welcome.
"Where they are looking for oil and how, it is cowboys now. It is down to the dribbles. It's risky to do and it will return little but also the impact of that risk is borne heavily by the people in that region, and my people in the north knew that, the people on the East Coast know that," she says.
Ms Davidson says the Government should stop issuing permits and subsidising the oil and gas industry and start supporting research into alternative energy sources.
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