Yesterday more than 70 people met at the steps of the Parliament to let the Government know that “you can’t silence us on deep sea oil drilling”. It was a response to the Governments plans to remove the right of the public to have a say on deep-sea oil and gas exploration permits.

We were excited to see so many people – despite all the wind and rain there were folks from Oil Free Wellington, Green Party, Forest & Bird, Generation Zero and many other organizations and groups, everyone with white tape across their mouths but still making noise with pots and pans, and cans, and bottles and even tea pots to symbolize that if the Government is planning to silence us, we will only get louder!

What you can (and should!) do now is to make a submission by 25 September and let the Government know that this is not how democracy works, and that the public has the rights to have a say on deep-sea oil and gas exploration permits. More on the full proposal, background documents and how to make a submission read here.

Watch a video from yesterdays protest.

Reports and photos from the protest by 3 News and The NZ Herald.