When National rammed through an emergency law under urgency last month outlawing protests at sea, critics accused them of selling our democratic rights to the oil industry. They were right:
Documents released to Labour under the Official Information Act show Mr Joyce had back-to-back meetings last September with Shell New Zealand chairman Rob Jager, business advisor Chris Kilby and chief executive of the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association David Robinson.
Labour energy and resources spokeswoman Moana Mackey said the papers showed the ban on protesting at sea was forged in a meeting with Shell.
"Shell provided a paper to Mr Joyce expressing concern that there was 'insufficient legal authority' to clamp down on offshore protests and that the Government 'has no teeth beyond 12 nautical miles to protect legitimate commercial activity'.
Within a month work began on the changes.''
The government also apparently withheld the Regulatory Impact Statement from Parliament despite being advised to release it, leaving MPs to vote in the dark on this issue.
Just another example of how National is selling out New Zealand - and our democratic rights - to its corporate cronies.
