Greenpeace says Shane Jones has fired a damp squib in response to yesterday’s 20,000+ strong protest against the coalition government’s fast track bill and war on nature.

Jones has today announced plans to re-open New Zealand to offshore oil and gas exploration, but Greenpeace is dismissing it as a pipe dream.

Greenpeace Aotearoa spokesperson Niamh O’Flynn says, "Shane Jones is dreaming. 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.

"For nearly a decade under the Key Government, together with iwi and hapū the length of Aotearoa, we fought tirelessly to push oil company after oil company out of the country and we succeeded. Oil and gas won’t win in Aotearoa.

"OMV, Anadarko, Statoil and more, wasted years and millions of dollars in a futile attempt to get a foothold here and they know they’d face even more resistance now, so they won’t be back because of this government’s flip-flop.

"Yesterday’s protest showed the coalition Government’ that they face a massive backlash from across the political spectrum and are now faced with a no-win situation."

"They must either ignore the will of the people and risk being a one-term Government or they must stop their reckless attacks on nature, and throw the fast track bill in the bin," says O’Flynn.Tens of thousands of New Zealanders have signed Greenpeace’s open letter to the oil industry pledging to resist if the government overturns the offshore oil and gas ban. "Just this week we’ve seen the oil industry cave to pressure in Taranaki and move their conference to online only to escape a planned protest by climate activists and the community. The industry is on the run," says O’Flynn.

"This movement will only get stronger because the vast majority of New Zealanders do not want nature destroyed for profit, they do not want oil, gas and mining companies given secretive shortcuts around environmental protection, and access to conservation land, and they will not sit by and watch Christoper Luxon wage a war on nature."

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