June 10, 2024
Welcome signs out for gas drillers despite protests
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Resources Minister Shane Jones says the coalition will not only lift the ban on oil and gas exploration but re-establish New Zealand as an attractive and secure destination for international investment.
The changes will be made later this year in amendments to the Crown Minerals Act.
He says the 2018 exploration ban was introduced by the previous Labour-New Zealand First Government not only halted the exploration needed to identify new sources, but it also shrank investment in further development of known gas fields.
He says natural gas is critical to keeping the lights on and the economy running.
Mr Jones made the announcement after more than 10,000 people marched down Auckland’s Queen St to protest the Government’s Fast Track Bill.
Greenpeace says the plan to re-open New Zealand to offshore oil and gas exploration is a pipe dream.
Greenpeace Aotearoa spokesperson Niamh O’Flynn says the oil exploration industry won’t risk coming back to Aotearoa because they know that it’s not worth coming all this way to fail again.
She says for nearly a decade under the Key Government, conservation groups together with iwi and hapū the length of Aotearoa fought successfully to push oil companies out of the country.
The environment select committee will today start hearing oral submissions on the Fast Track Approvals Bill.
It received 27,000 written submissions.
Haimona Maruera from Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui said the bill was inconsistent with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and the fisheries and aquaculture settlements – and it won’t stop the iwi’s fight against seabed mining off the Taranaki coast.