In 2013, with just a few hours notice, I left Dunedin to board a sailboat, joining Greenpeace and people from across the country in a flotilla to protest offshore oil exploration in the oceans west of Aotearoa.
The boat was the veteran protest yacht SV Vega – which first protested Pacific nuclear testing in 1972, soon after Greenpeace was born. Now, 41 years later, we were headed out to sea to put ourselves in the way of the latest oil exploration vessel darkening the horizon: the gigantic Noble Bob Douglas drillship sent by the Texan oil major, Anadarko.
On board with me were the late Jeanette Fitzsimons and the former Greenpeace Director Bunny McDiarmid, who was crew on the Rainbow Warrior when it was bombed in Auckland Harbour in 1985, and long-time sailor and activist Yvette Wijnen. We were there because the oil industry threatens the very future of life on earth – and because we wouldn’t simply stand aside and let that happen.
In 2013, after days of sailing to get there, we kept vigil at the site set to be drilled for 10 days and nights, putting ourselves directly in the path of the massive drill ship. We broke the 500-metre exclusion zone that the National Government of the time had introduced specifically to stop protests at sea around oil exploration. I remember how, up close, the drill ship looked like a skyscraper. And when we returned to shore, a powerful movement continued to resist the oil industry – participating in hīkoi, writing letters, taking part in civil disobedience, and doing everything in our power to put a stop to offshore oil exploration in Aotearoa.
After eight long years of campaigning alongside iwi, hapū and other environment groups – and five years after I boarded the Vega – in 2018, Jacinda Ardern’s Government banned all new offshore oil and gas exploration. It was globally significant and arguably the most impactful action Ardern’s Government ever took on climate change. Since then, the oceans have been mostly free from the threat of catastrophic offshore oil spills, and whales and dolphins have been safe from seismic blasting in the areas they live, feed, and breed.
It was a monumental win for nature and the climate – and something that many New Zealanders are proud to have achieved. Because we all want our kids to have a chance to grow up safe from total climate collapse. Nobody wants to see oil spilling onto New Zealand’s beaches or causing precious marine wildlife – penguins, dolphins, and whales – to suffer.
But all of that is now under threat again.
Prime Minister-elect Christopher Luxon and his coalition partners, David Seymour and Winston Peters, have threatened to overturn Jacinda Ardern’s ban on new offshore exploration permits. Throughout the election campaign, they have courted climate denial and promised to delay climate action.
Even the conservative International Energy Agency has said that there can be no new oil and gas exploration anywhere in the world because, to meet emissions reduction targets, we cannot afford to burn known reserves, let alone drill for more. We are in a climate crisis, and Luxon’s irrational lust for oil is at odds with this plain fact.
When I boarded that sailboat to confront Anadarko, I did it because I knew a better world was possible. I was angry about the bastards polluting our planet, and I wanted to change things, and so did so many other people around me.
That feeling hasn’t gone away. I want my five year old son to grow up on a planet that is safe, stable, and thriving. I want him to be able to play in the sand at the beach and see dolphins in the wild. I want him to stand up for what he believes in and make the world a better place, but I certainly don’t want him to have to fight the same battle against fossil fuels that my generation has fought for our entire adult lives.
I know I’m not alone. During the days of the campaign to end oil and gas exploration in Aotearoa’s waters, hundreds of thousands of people stood up to the oil industry. Together, we drove those oil companies away one by one. Petrobras, Anadarko, Shell, Chevron and Statoil all came here at the invitation of the Government, and they all left, chased off by regular people standing up for the protection of the ocean and the climate.
Luxon may think he can bring back new oil and gas exploration – but we, the people, will resist again. The oil and gas industry will never be welcome here in Aotearoa. We’ll all be there again to stop them – with our kids in tow.
Sign the open letter to the oil industry – We will resist oil exploration