NRT: National lets Shell drill illegally

Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, October 26th, 2014 - 14 comments
Categories: accountability, business, Conservation, energy, International, law - Tags: , , , ,

Meant to post this last week – I/S at No Right Turn. (See also this account on Stuff and a Greenpeace blog on this.)

National lets Shell drill illegally

Back in 2012, National passed the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act. At the time, they made a lot of noise about how this was the first legislation to properly protect the EEZ, and that it would lead to a higher level of protection than the existing Continental Shelf Act. So, have they actually enforced the law? Yeah, right:

Shell Todd Oil has drilled two wells off the coast of Taranaki without marine consent, the Green Party says.

Official Information Act (OIA) correspondence between the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and the Greens — released to the media tonight — show the EPA inspected the company’s Maui oil wells in May this year.

The authority concluded that in two instances Shell Todd Oil Services Ltd (STOS) did not comply with Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) regulations.

“[T]he two activities are considered to be in breach of section 20 of the EEZ Act and were undertaken without a marine consent,” the EPA said in a response to OIA questions from the Greens.

Breaching s20 is a strict-liability offence carrying a penalty of a $10 million fine. But National seems to have just let that slide for its mates in the drillign industry. The message is clear: the law applies only to little people, to us peasants. Under National, corporate criminals get a free ride.

14 comments on “NRT: National lets Shell drill illegally ”

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  1. marty mars 1
    26 October 2014 at 12:08 pm

    and so it begins. The rules will be manipulated to give these exploiters a free ride and the road on which they ride upon is our environment, our flora and fauna, and ultimately us – all for the profit of a few – absolutely sickening in every possible way.

  2. NZJester 2
    26 October 2014 at 12:16 pm

    What do you expect. Under National someone must die before they will take action on anything a big corporation has done. But then only if they can not find a way to blame the victim for getting themselves killed. Otherwise they will take a firm stand and slap the company on the wrist and tell them not to do it again (Get caught without a scapegoat) or they will be in very big trouble!

    • Grace Miller 2.1
      28 October 2014 at 8:36 am

      Yes, that’s right. The law is there for the rich, like coal or potatoes; they order it when they need it.

      • KJT 2.1.1
        31 October 2014 at 9:45 pm

        “The law does not distinguish between the poor and the wealthy. Both are forbidden to sleep under a bridge’
        .

  3. dv 3
    26 October 2014 at 12:21 pm

    ‘Under National someone must die before they will take action on anything a big corporation has done

    NOPE, not with Pike River.

  4. alwyn 4
    26 October 2014 at 12:28 pm

    “Official Information Act (OIA) correspondence between the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and the Greens — released to the media tonight — show the EPA inspected the company’s Maui oil wells in May this year.”
    ‘ “[T]he two activities are considered to be in breach of section 20 of the EEZ Act and were undertaken without a marine consent,” the EPA said in a response to OIA questions from the Greens.’

    Can you provide a link to the material released?
    I would like to see what they did say for myself, rather than what the Green Party, or Greenpeace, say the EPA said.

    • Draco T Bastard 4.1
      26 October 2014 at 1:16 pm

      The NZHerald didn’t, unfortunately, link to the OIA response.

      I’m now of the opinion that all OIA requests should go through https://www.fyi.org.nz/ so as to make them all easily searchable.

    • Tracey 4.2
      26 October 2014 at 3:06 pm

      you dont trust the herald to have corrected any misinterpretation by the green party?

      • alwyn 4.2.1
        26 October 2014 at 3:25 pm

        No. I don’t trust the Herald full stop.
        They, like all the other New Zealand newspapers, are far to lazy to bother checking up on any well written press release that they can run. Saves them a lot of time and trouble you see.
        It doesn’t worry them if the story may be heavily slanted. Let’s face it the average ill-educated journalist wouldn’t even realise that the story wasn’t true in the first place.
        The only largish paper in Australasia that does research its stories is The Australian. Murdoch may own it but he is the only newspaperman around who actually has a genuine interest in the trade. The others only care about putting a few words in to space out the ads.
        I don’t trust the Green Party not to put out press releases that misinterpret things either. That is particularly the case if the come from Gareth Hughes. On the other hand I don’t trust the National, Labour or New Zealand First parties either. They are politicians after all.

        • Grace Miller 4.2.1.1
          28 October 2014 at 8:39 am

          A genuine interest, you say? Like supporting political parties in the UK to sway/influence an election? Like allowing staff on his paper that hack dead girl’s phones, you say?

          Yeah, Rupe is unimpeachable.

          The slugs and sycophants that call themselves journalists in this country are risible.

  5. Sable 5
    26 October 2014 at 3:20 pm

    When the TPPA passes they will do what they like.

  6. vto 6
    27 October 2014 at 7:04 pm

    The government has an obligation to uphold the law. It is not up to current Ministers how laws are applied.

    Something is not right here ….
    something is missing

  7. EricColbert 7
    31 October 2014 at 9:23 pm

    Why am I not surprised that a big issue like this always has some underhanded agenda behind it. I won’t be surprised if we found out more illegal operations going on that discriminate against us “little people” and it’s bad enough that we don’t even know if the papers we read are telling us a neutral point of view or not. But at the end of the day, I’m glad that this story has been brought out from storage into light. National won’t do anything about the state of things if we don’t make noise about it, and at the very least, let’s spread the news about how irresponsible their behaviour and biased-ness is.

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