Christopher Luxon attempts to remove foot from mouth

[Praktica]

Are we talking about oil and gas exploration?  Good riddance to it I say, far better ways to build an economy for the future...

and from what I read, it wasn't a $30billion industry - it was a maybe/potential  $30billion industry - a big difference.    they estimated $30billion in value lost by 2050 if it prospered, so approx $1billion dollars per year over the next 30 years.  Never would have lasted that long imho...  

I guess you may not be so critical if you were some of the people who relied on it for their livelihood.  Instead at some point we will need to start importing gas like we now import record amounts of dirty Indonesian coal while our (relatively) clean coal sits in the ground.

Well, your neoliberal friends corporatised the state owned mines, and we then proceeded to the next step - buy the cheapest coal available. You need to do some thinking, about the consequences of supporting unfettered capitalism.