Plagued by right wing hypocrisy | The Jackal

17 Feb 2013

Plagued by right wing hypocrisy

Today, Stuff reported:

Crown minister Chris Tremain has been accused of double standards for lobbying to ban oil and gas exploration in parts of his back yard.

Tremain, the Minister of Internal Affairs, of Local Government and Associate Minister of Tourism, is a member of a government caucus that supports offering large blocks of New Zealand countryside for oil and gas exploration, including the use of the controversial fracking technique.

But in a message to constituents in his Napier electorate, Tremain has written that exploration has been outlawed from geology around aquifers - or underground wet rock - in Hawke's Bay.

The water sources are crucial for the region's horticulture and agriculture industries.

As is the water from aquifers vital to many industries in other areas National wants to frack.

In an article outlining the "huge" financial opportunity oil and gas exploration offered "The Bay", Tremain wrote: "Sure, there are risks involved, but there are risks in everything we do from driving the car to playing a game of rugby.

"In the case of the oil and gas industry, Craig Foss [National Party MP for Tukituki] and I have worked with the Minister of Energy to remove our Hawke's Bay aquifers from exploration."

The double standards couldn't be more apparent... Here we have a National MP ensuring that his constituency is removed from the permit process while still promoting it elsewhere.

I wonder what Tremain's reason is for not wanting fracking in the Hawkes Bay? Probably the same reasons to not have it anywhere else in New Zealand.

The National party has made numerous attempts to mislead the public concerning the safety of fracking, while Tremain won't accept it in his own back yard.

Hypocrisy is obviously at epidemic proportions within the National party, but what else is new?