New Zealand goes to the polls on November 26th, as oil continues to wash ashore from the oil spill on the east coast.
This week (27.10.2011), the opposition Labour Party launched its election campaign with the incumbent National Party timing its campaign launch for the weekend and the third largest party, the Green Party, launching its campaign on November 6th.
While the two major parties are focussing the issues for the four week election campaign around asset sales and the economy, the country is also concerned with the devastating environmental and economic impacts of the oil spill.
An increasing number of people are dissatisfied with the Government’s handling of the oil spill response that has resulted in New Zealand’s worst maritime environmental disaster. Tourism and other businesses throughout the Bay of Plenty and East Cape are also affected by the oil spill with cancellations of forward bookings.
Oil Spill Raises Spectre of Deep Sea Oil Drilling
The oil spill has been a harsh lesson in the potential environmental impact of an oil-based disaster for New Zealand.
Many people are opposed to the Government’s support for the oil industry’s plans and permits for deep-sea oil exploration in the Raukumara Basin off East Cape.
Even from the relatively small oil spill off the east coast, oil has travelled more than 200 km across the Bay of Plenty and has affected beaches and wildlife there, and more recently around the East Cape.
Protestors argue that the Rena disaster demonstrates New Zealand's lack of capacity to contain a small oil spill (of about 360 tonnes so far of heavy sump oil), and that a major oil leak from a deep-sea drilling rig would be much, much worse.
Any oil in the water, no matter what it’s source, has unacceptable consequences for the environment whether it is from a ship or an oil rig. It took authorities more than five days to respond to the disaster, and most of the clean-up of oil from the Bay of Plenty’s hundreds of kilometres of pristine golden sand beaches, has been done by thousands of volunteers.
Wildlife and Kai Moana hit Hard by Oil Spill
The oil spill has also resulted in thousands of dead seabirds, killed other wildlife such as seals, left coastal rocks covered in oil, and forced east coast communities to put a rahui (ban) on fishing and kai moana (seafood) gathering along about 300km of the affected coastline.
At Motiti Island, just 7.5km from the Rena and Astrolabe Reef, the impact of the oil is most evident and the community there is appealing for more help from volunteers to clean up the island's coastline.
Meanwhile, salvors are still pumping oil from the stricken ship, and predict that it could take several more weeks to empty the ship’s oil tanks and then start the removal of more than 1000 containers onboard. The concern is that bad weather could cause the Rena to break-up before all the oil is removed.
Campaign Launch Focus On Economic Issues
The Labour Party launched it’s election campaign this week with an emphasis on its opposition to state asset sales, as the Government intends to sell off or partially privatise state assets.
The Party’s billboards around the country highlight the 'Stop Asset Sales' campaign, as well as many featuring the push for fiscal measures such as a $15 an hour minimum wage, making the first $5000 of income tax free and taking GST off fresh fruit and vegetables.
Like the National Party, whose campaign centres around the leadership of Prime Minister, John Key, the Labour Party is not publically opposed to deep sea oil drilling, although it is critical of the National Government’s lack of funding for Maritime New Zealand.
Maritime NZ Under-funded for Safety Protection
Labour leader, Phill Goff has said that Maritime NZ, (the body with statutory responsibility over shipping safety and maritime environmental protection), has had its funding frozen for the past three years since Labour left office. The organisation had since been forced into a number of reviews aimed at cost-cutting and rapid restructuring.
Labour had doubled Maritime NZ’s budget for policy advice on safety regulation while it was in power, between 2000 and 2008, while National has frozen the Vote Transport maritime appropriation at $5.7m and projected it to stay put until 2013/2014. This five-year freeze had starved the organisation of the funding it needed to operate effectively, said Phil Goff.
Green Party Opposes Deep Sea Oil Drilling
The Green Party campaign launch next week is expected to feature the party’s three main campaign policies of lifting 100,000 children out of policy, measures to improve river water quality, and to create 100,000 new green-tech jobs for New Zealanders.
Earlier this month, the Green Party stated its opposition to deep-sea oil drilling. The Party said New Zealand had struggled to respond quickly to the Rena disaster, and an off-shore oil spill (such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico last year), would be thousands of times worse.
The Party said the Rena disaster was a lesson that should end plans to allow deep-sea oil drilling in New Zealand waters.
For background information see also;
Possible Toxic Effects from New Zealand Oil Spill Disaster (15th October 2011)
Large Numbers of Seabirds Die in New Zealand Oil Spill Disaster (14th October 2011)
East Coast Oil Spill New Zealand's Worst for Wildlife And Beaches (8th October 2011)
