Climate campaigners say the government’s Crown Minerals Amendment (CMA) bill is a “golden parachute for polluters—and a lead weight for taxpayers”. The bill is expected to pass today, and clears the way for new fossil fuel exploration while gutting safeguards that ensure existing oil and gas companies pay for their clean-up. The government has jumped the third and final reading of the CMA bill from #21 on the order paper, to #1. This move by Shane Jones comes after climate activists began a dramatic shutdown of Stockton Mine on Monday morning, where Jones responded with a video (https://x.com/mangonui08/status/1949638685219344600)
350 Aotearoa campaigner Adam Currie says, “This bill is a legislative match tossed into a climate tinderbox. It doesn’t just open New Zealand up to new climate-killing oil and gas drilling — it strips away financial safeguards, leaving taxpayers on the hook for future decommissioning costs. Without these financial securities and trailing liability, the government is at a higher risk of having to pay to decommission – or plug – a failed oil well. This is no hypothetical – the fossil fuel industry previously left the taxpayer with a $443 million bill to decommission the Tui oil field. The oil lobby is clearly writing the script— the Government is just reading their lines.”
“As floods and storms ravage across the world and climate scientists run out of adjectives to describe how urgent the situation is, Christopher Luxon’s Government is forging ahead with reckless plans to search for new oil and gas, dig up more coal and shelve every initiative to reduce emissions that they can. It’s another time New Zealanders can peek through the drawn curtains of this government – a government run by shady lobbyists writing policy and being appointed to key positions.”
“This bill does nothing for New Zealand’s energy security. We know that new oil drilling would take over a decade to come online, and the International Energy Agency tells us that global demand for oil, gas, and coal is on track to peak well before then. It doesn’t have to be this way. The people of Aotearoa have a historic opportunity to move away from fossil fuels to a clean energy future powered by wind and solar that would mean more affordable, cleaner and reliable energy for New Zealanders. Instead of fiscally irresponsible false solutions, the government should be focused on creating a long-term energy strategy that charts a parth away from this broken, fossil-fuelled system that is responsible for rising energy poverty and workers losing their jobs.
Fenton Lutunatabua, 350.org Pacific Interim Team Lead says,
“Instead of securing a safe future for all countries in the Pacific, the New Zealand government has decided to hammer nails into our coffins. Many will feel this bill is a betrayal to Pacific neighbours, but it is in fact a betrayal of their own future generations as well. We see the increased flooding in New Zealand, and we mirror that pain in our own storm surge and coastal inundation. How the Luxon government thinks that repealing the oil and gas ban is the right decision for any of our futures is absurd.”
Adam Currie says: “This bill repealing the oil and gas ban has forced NZ out of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA) – an alliance that we were part of creating. Aotearoa once claimed to be a climate leader—today, we are an international embarrassment. Aotearoa helped build the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance. Today, we’ve walked out on our own future—and become an international embarrassmen. If climate destruction were a crime, this Government would be caught red-handed.”
“The bill also comes less than 24 hours after climate activists began a dramatic climb of coal buckets, effectively preventing coal from leaving Bathurst Resources Stockton Mine, the biggest coal mine in New Zealand. The climbers are opposing this government’s fossil-fuelled agenda, and focusing on Bathurst’s Fast-Track application to open a 20 million tonne coal mine on the Denniston Plateau that would be the same size as Nelson city.”
Notes:
1 Former Tui owner Tamarind Resources went into liquidation just a couple of years after acquiring the Tui oil field, forcing taxpayers to pay over $400 million to decommission the field. https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/03/12/concerns-as-new-oil-well-operator-rises-from-the-ashes-of-liquidated-tamarind/
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/511110/nearly-half-a-billion-taxpayer-dollars-set-aside-to-decommission-tui-oil-field
2 The order paper for Parliament’s last sitting day (21 July) showed the bill at #21 on the order paper. The provisional order paper for today (29 July) suddenly showed the bill as #1 on the order paper.
The link to the full order paper is here: https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-NZ/OrderPaper_20250729/5aabf822b4a2fc97ff8e35dff1acfef995c7316b
The previous order paper for the last day is here: https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-NZ/OrderPaper_20250724/9ebf0c84144d845806fb71549038ebbf64af68d0
3 Bill author and Minister Shane Jones has today also released a last-ditch amendment to the bill, less than eight hours before the debate is due to occur. In a process oddity, the bill is expected to be recommitted to the committee stage for half an hour for the amendment to be made, before the bill is passed. The amendment’s exploratory note reads:
‘removes automatic liability for the cost of decommissioning from previous permit holders’ and ‘proposes to reverse the position of both the Bill as introduced and Amendment Paper No 214, so that only existing permit holders (and licence holders and persons with a participating interest in a permit or licence) are made absolutely liable in the Act for unmet decommissioning costs.’
That’s right – according to the government’s own language, the amendment is a u-turn on the government’s initial bill wording, reversing their position on that aspect of the Bill. Ending the oil and gas exploration ban was bad enough – but the changes make the bill far worse, dramatically reducing existing decommissioning requirements in a handout to the fossil fuel companies that are the devil in the government’s ear.
4 The full exploratory note for the paper reads:
The Crown Minerals Amendment Bill (the Bill) as introduced (in September 2024) proposed to limit trailing liability for unmet decommissioning costs to the most recent permit holder or participant who transferred out.
Amendment Paper No 214 (released in November 2024) proposed to extend trailing liability to a wider range of people, beyond existing and previous permit holders, by adding various persons having a controlling interest in a body corporate to the list of persons who are currently liable for meeting unmet decommissioning costs.
This Amendment Paper proposes to reverse the position of both the Bill as introduced and Amendment Paper No 214, so that only existing permit holders (and licence holders and persons with a participating interest in a permit or licence) are made absolutely liable in the Act for unmet decommissioning costs.
This Amendment Paper removes automatic liability for the cost of decommissioning from previous permit holders
5. A link to details about oil spill possibilities are here: https://www.greenpeace.org/aotearoa/story/luxons-threat-to-restart-oil-exploration-would-be-a-disaster-for-the-climate-and-the-ocean/