Is Gerry Brownlee biting off more than he can chew?

The ever brilliant Gordon Campbell over at Scoop asks if NZ could cope with a deep sea oil leak...

Big Oil: Rigging the Game - Do we have the will – or ability – to deal with the oil multinationals?
Last month, the state-owned Brazilian firm Petrobras won the sole right to explore and drill for five years in the Raukumara Basin – a 12,000 square kilometre patch of ocean that runs from just north of the Bay of Plenty/East Cape region, to locations some 110 kilometres out at sea. The not-so-good news is that some observers (such as the influential Bloomberg Business Week) regard the reliance of Petrobras on deep water drilling as something of a potential risk in itself:

State-controlled Petróleo Brasileiro (PBR) is by far the world’s biggest oil producer in waters deeper than 1,000 feet. In 2009, Petrobras, which is based in Rio de Janeiro, pumped 20 percent of all oil from deep waters….This deepwater dominance leaves Petrobras more exposed than any oil company on the planet to the risk of an accident similar to the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest in U.S. history. Undeterred, the company is sticking with its aggressive schedule of deepwater drilling…

Fresh from lying over the size of conservation land impacted by his plans to mine and misleading the NZ public on the actual valuation of those minerals, the Minister for Mordor and Masochism, Gerry Brownlee has greenlighted our own deep sea drilling, and will we like Canada demand relief wells dug first? Of course not! Gerry tells us the voluntary code of 'Best Practice' will look after us. Really? A voluntary 'Best Practice' code is all that Gerry will implement?

Gerry's press secretary knows 'Best Practice' unfortunately has the same initials as BP right?

If Gerry's vision of a water tight voluntary code that will protect us from oil spills and will be so carefully scrutinized that all the I's are dotted and all the T's crossed is so certain, then why the fuck weren't local Iwi even consulted over the Petrobras contract?

So Gerry's eagle like vision to assure us this drilling deal will be safe couldn't even manage to remember to talk to local Maori about this arrangement?

A voluntary 'Best Practice' code and a deal that couldn't even remember to talk to local Maori are a sign that Gerry has bitten off way more than he can chew and Campbell's criticisms over the lax regulation towards these oil companies could all prove terribly damaging to NZ.

Rather than these discussions in the media, we get Chris Carter being chased down stairs over flowers he bought his boyfriend.