Citizen A: Matthew Hooton & Selwyn Manning

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Issue 1: Deep sea oil exploration starts this week – has Minister Simon Bridges bitten off more than he can chew?

Issue 2: Should Pike River compensation be paid to families?

and issue 3 tonight : Has Bill English snookered the asset sale referendum by announcing no more asset sales?

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

23 COMMENTS

  1. Is this the best excuse the Right can come up with?

    That they are driven by fear to develop this oil or else?

    Mathew Hooton says that if we don’t exploit these risky deep sea oil reserves, our country will be invaded and we will be forced to do so.

    “If we have oil in our economic zone, which is one of the biggest in the world, Quite frankly, we either drill it and sell it, hopefully on better terms than the government’s current arrangements. Or as peak oil approaches, some time over the next Century and oil goes up and up in value, someone else is going to come and invade us and steal it. Because that’s what happens with natural resources. We either take this oil and sell it or one day someone will come and steal it….

    …..it is best to drill it and sell it now.”

    Mathew Hooton @ 11:30 minutes

    What a gutless quisling.

    And who is the invader he is alluding too?

    Is it the country that infamously has invaded more other countries in history and that Andarko calls home, or is it their Chinese rivals?

    And if it is the Chinese he is talking about… Come on Mathew, do you really thinking the Chinese would risk World War III for New Zealand’s oil?

    And Mathew, if the government are really being motivated by fear of being violently invaded and our oil reserves being taken by force, as you claim. Then in the face of this supposed threat of invasion, shouldn’t we be mobilising the country to resist, instead of prostrating ourselves before these dangerous and threatening foreign oil interests?

    Do we really want to be turned into the Nigeria of the South Seas?

    • The Empire Strikes Back

      http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/protest-yacht-almost-squashed-anadarko-5721419

      “The Vega’s skipper called the Bailey Tide several times using VHF channels 16, 13 and 9, and expressing real concern about this dangerous manoeuvre, but there was no reply.”

      Mr Foreman said the Bailey Tide’s thrusters and propeller wash churned up the water and meant the Vega had little or no steering.

      Onboard the Vega, crew became concerned, especially as neither Anadarko boat would reply to radio contact, McDiarmid said.

      “It kicked up a lot of water that pushed our stern out and pushed our bow around, so we had our engines going flat tack and tried to move out of their way.”

      Sudden and dangerous manoeuvres, performed without warnings, or even threats to stay away, indicate a callous disregard for human life.

      How much effort would it take to pick up the radio mic? This ominous machine like silence, is indicative of a certain frame of mind.

      The fact that the Andarko vessels have cut off all normal marine communication, indicates that Andarko no longer consider the crew of the Vega and other protest vessels to be human.

      Time is money and money is all that counts.

      The sooner this brutal scum are driven from our waters the better.

    • The Empire Strikes Back

      http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/protest-yacht-almost-squashed-anadarko-5721419

      Tim Foreman said the Bailey Tide, which is able to move sideways using thrusters, started to slowly move towards the drilling ship without warning.

      “The Vega’s skipper called the Bailey Tide several times using VHF channels 16, 13 and 9, and expressing real concern about this dangerous manoeuvre, but there was no reply.”

      Mr Foreman said the Bailey Tide’s thrusters and propeller wash churned up the water and meant the Vega had little or no steering.

      Onboard the Vega, crew became concerned, especially as neither Anadarko boat would reply to radio contact, McDiarmid said.

      “It kicked up a lot of water that pushed our stern out and pushed our bow around, so we had our engines going flat tack and tried to move out of their way.”

      Sudden and dangerous manoeuvres, performed without warnings, or even threats to stay away, indicate a callous disregard for human life.

      How much effort would it take to pick up the radio mic? This ominous machine like silence, is indicative of a certain frame of mind.

      The fact that the Andarko vessels have cut off all normal marine communication, indicates that Andarko no longer consider the crew of the Vega and other protest vessels to be human.

      Time is money and money is all that counts.

      The sooner this brutal scum are driven from our waters the better.

  2. Mr Cunliffe, The government legislation specifically precludes climate change being allowed as grounds for objection in planning consent hearings.

    Evidence on climate change was therefore not allowed to be raised as an objection in the recent consent hearings and appeal against the Denniston Coal mine.

    It is arguable, that if climate change had been allowed as a grounds for objection, that Denniston or in fact any new coal mine would not gain consent ever again, anywhere. The evidence is just that convincing. Don’t you agree?

    Do you think this is fair or right or even safe?

    In light of this injustice and the terrible danger we are all in. Mr Cunliffe with your known strong views on climate change, will a government led by you still allow the Denniston coal mine the biggest ever in New Zealand’s history, to proceed?

    Mr Cunliffe, one other question. Relating to climate change and the exploitation of unconventional fossil fuels.

    Will a government led by you tell Andarko to go?

    One last question; Will climate change be an election issue?

    (Or will it be deliberately ignored as it was in the last American elections?)

    • Good grief! Two things:
      1) Mr Cunliffe will tell you anything you want to hear, and
      2) He won’t ever be our country’s prime minister. Bring back David Shearer I say; at least he is honest.

      • When it came to climate change David Shearer was liar by omission. The biggest climate change ignorer in the country. (And he is still at it, in his new role as Labour’s Energy Spokesperson). John Key is a little more honest saying, jobs are more important than dealing with climate change, which he once said on ZB radio. The dishonesty was, that what he really meant. was money is more important than the climate.

        • Hey Jenny, I’m glad you came out to play.
          My thought this morning is that for other people to take us seriously we need to avoid loose accusations like people “lying by omission” For example when interviewed on TV how often do you see a politician actually allowed to complete an answer before the interviewer interrupts and directs the interview to suit his or her cause? Who’s then responsible for the “omission” of facts?

  4. According to the NZ Herald “Mr Cunliffe said Labour was ‘not opposed in principle to responsible and environmentally sensible’ offshore exploration”.
    I would suggest that “responsible and environmentally sensible offshore exploration” is an oxymoronic statement. Sadly I expect his ‘Dolphin and the Dole’ speech will be a distant memory come election time.

    • Just a small rewrite exposes the untenable nature of the Labour Party’s stand.

      Labour is ‘not opposed in principle to responsible and environmentally sensible’ climate change.

      Since Labour cannot deny the danger that the exploitation of unconventional fossil fuel reserves pose to the planet, it is best to just ignore this threat. Just as Labour ultimately plan to ignore the danger of a major oil spill.

      Time for David Cunliffe to climb down from his strange position and directly confront the issues.

  5. Agreed. It is utterly impossible to safely drill (let alone deep sea) in a seismically active area. Off shore drilling in New Zealand is literally an accident (i.e. an environmental disaster) waiting to happen.

    • Nitrium
      Nothing is 100% safe. The problem with your diatribe is that there are thousands of drill sites with zero record of accidents/spills.
      For goodness sake get informed.
      IF IT IS NOT A FACT IT DOESN’T EXIST

      • Nothing is 100% safe.

        I think you’ll find, Manu, that that statement is ludicrous because it is utterly meaningless.

        And if you look up the number of accidents/spills, you’ll find some real facts. (So if facts exist, it must be real, right?)

        This is your chance to get informed:

        “In this period, a total of 9.8 million tons of oil were spilled in 1213 incidents. While exploration and production was responsible for far fewer spills than ships, storage and
        refinery and pipelines, it caused far greater quantities of oil to be released. Six million tons of spilled oil came from 888 ship incidents; 870,000 tons from 113 spills at storage and
        refinery sites and 750,000 tons from 188 spills from pipelines.

        However, 2.2 million tons were spilled by just 24 incidents during exploration and production.

        These figures reveal the severity of spills from exploration and production. While the risk of small or medium spills is generally higher from ships, pipelines and storage/refineries, the risk of large and therefore more severe oil spills is higher from exploration and production as the potential amount of oil that could be released is far greater.”

        Source: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsalert/pdf/317na2.pdf

        And check out the worst oil spills here: http://environment.about.com/od/environmentalevents/tp/worst-oil-spills.htm

  6. Putting aside the issues around deep sea drilling for a minute, NZ has been producing oil from offshore wells for years, mostly without incident as far as I know.

    Of course, all energy production carries an element of risk. The question of whether the deep water prospects have been properly risk assessed and measures put in place to deal with emergencies is unknown to me.

    In that respect, I think the oil industry and the government could have done a much better job at delivering this information to the public.

  7. Well, if we put aside those who completely rule out fossil fuel extraction, there is still a consensus that government regulation of deepsea oil has been badly put together, such that even relatively incident free exploitation is unlikely to benefit NZ.

    Of no interest to foreign lackeys like Key, but somewhat important to NZers.

    • Consensus? What consensus?
      Those actually in the know appear to be well pleased with the regulations; if anything they are overly restrictive. The fact remains the process was completed and the oil exploratory companies passed the test.
      Just keeping it real.

      • Sorry Manu – that view was not elaborated.

        By ‘those in the know’ I presume you mean those receiving a cut.

        These processes were passed under urgency in the dead of night, and it wasn’t because they met the test of public interest.

  8. By the way, I’ve been “out of the loop” for about three months. What’s this about “Citizen A” coming to and end?!?!

    Or did I mis-understand Bomber, and this series is coming to an end this year, with a new series planned for 2014?

    Christ-on-a-stick, with three f*****g shopping channels on Freeview, I think we’re entitled to 30 minutes of intelligent discourse on a serious chat show!!

    • Hi Frank, great to see you back… Missed you! Sadly, yes Citizen A broadcast its last show last night on FaceTV. The final webcast will be up on TheDailyBlog once FaceTV has it uploaded. For info about what’s happened with FaceTV being squeezed out of the digital space see this post and this one from Beatson.

      FaceTV continues to broadcast behind the paywall on SkyTV channel 83, but unfortunately so many of us don’t have Sky.

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