21 August 2013

350.Aotearoa in Christchurch: $10 giveaway!

If you had $10 to spare at the end of the week, what would you do with it? Would you get something special for yourself or for the family? Maybe you’d save it for a rainy day? Maybe you’d just be grateful that you made it through the week. Or maybe you’d hand it over to the rich family down the road?

No Way!

And if you were a country like New Zealand and you had $46 million to spare (that’s about $10 for every one of us). What could NZ do with the money? Perhaps we should invest it in the rebuild of Christchurch? Or use it for health or education? Maybe conservation needs that cash? Or families on welfare? Or perhaps we should give our $46 million to rich and profitable oil companies overseas?

No Way!

Every year the Government gives away $46 million of our money to the richest companies in the world – companies like Shell, BP and Anadarko. The money takes the form of tax breaks, permits, licences and help with exploration.

Members of the Christchurch branch of 350.Aotearoa are sending a strong message to the Government – “No Way!”

Spokesperson Antony Field said that protesters would be at petrol stations around the city this weekend. “We’ll be handing out copies of $10 notes explaining to people what’s happening to their money. We’re asking people to support us in contacting Simon Bridges or John Key to give them the message – No Way!”

“The public of New Zealand understand climate change and we know that there have to be changes in the way things are done so that we all use less oil, gas and coal. So we want to Government to stop subsidising these polluting industries of the past and start looking to the future,” said John Adams of 350.Aotaeroa in Christchurch.

Members of the group are particularly aware of the dreadful effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. “And some of the proposed exploration around NZ is in deeper water than that was,” explained Adams. “So if or when something goes wrong we’ll be in a shocking mess.”

“We love our beaches and we are proud of our oceans so we do not want to see rigs and oil spills around our beautiful coastline. Oil exploration is completely unwelcome in Pegasus Bay,” said Field. “And at the moment the Government is using our money to encourage the oil companies to come here to explore.”

Motorists can expect to see members of 350.Aotearoa at petrol stations around Christchurch at the weekend. They’ll even be staging a “pretend” presentation of a giant cheque for $46 million. “It’s a gift from John Key to the oil industry.”

More Info from:

http://350.org.nz/
http://www.wwf.org.nz/media_centre/news/?10762/New-report-exposes-Government-hypocrisy-on-fossil-fuel-subsidies

ENDS

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