Not a good idea

The government has announced the results of its latest oil exploration permit offers - including two blocks for Anadarko in the Pegasus Basin. For those with short memories, Anadarko owned 25% of the Deepwater Horizon platform, which exploded and polluted the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. And now they'll be drilling in 2,700m deep water off New Zealand.

This company, doing this sort of drilling, doesn't exactly fill me with confidence - especially given the lax regulatory environment. And any spill will likely end up in Kaikoura - damaging one of our premier tourist industries.

And then there's the other problem: they're drilling a chemical weapons dump. According to NZ Petroleum and Minerals, block 54861 used to be known as 12PEG2 - which is right where New Zealand dumped its mustard gas at the end of World War II.

No, not a good idea at all. And hopefully it'll suffer the same fate as Petrobras' exploration off East Cape.