We saw the same outrageous claims in 1997 when the then National Government passed Schedule 4 and banned mining on conservation land on the Coromandel Peninsula and elsewhere in New Zealand.

Those claims for “compensation” were dismissed in 1997, and they should be dismissed now.  We are a sovereign nation and we can change our laws whenever we wish.  This is a known and accepted risk taken by oil drillers and miners when they come here.

Here is the blog post –

“The government is currently progressing legislation to ban offshore oil exploration. The oil industry doesn’t like this, because its the first step towards putting them out of business. And now they’re outrageously demanding “compensation” for the violation of their “property rights”:

“Passing this bill will put New Zealand on a blacklist of countries with sovereign risk,” the oil representative said.

Get that? If this law is passed, they might sulk and not “invest” here. Which is the point of the bill, because “investing” in destroying the planet isn’t an “investment” we want anybody to make.

As for the idea of “compensation”, it’s as odious as Britain’s compensation of slaveowners when they abolished slavery, and as justifiable as the idea of compensating some Saudi wide-boy for banning live sheep exports. There should be no “compensation” for people whose business model is literally the destruction of the planet. Democracies are entitled to change their minds, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. If companies doing business here haven’t factored that risk in, then they’re simply fools. Our right to govern ourselves and set policy according to the will of the people is not subject to a foreign financial veto, and isn’t actionable in any court. And again, if foreign companies don’t like it, they can just fuck off. In fact, the quicker they do that, the safer the world will be.”