New Zealand's annual petroleum conference in Wellington this week ended in a good old-fashioned political stoush between disparate positions, reflecting public concerns with offshore, deepwater oil and gas exploration.
Fracking, deepwater drilling and lack of opportunity for public input for consents all got an airing.
Political positions were unmoved from months of exploration arguments, with Minister of Energy and Resources Simon Bridges defending non-public notification for exploration resource consents.
Green Party co-leader Russel Norman was highlighting ''out-of-control climate change'', while Labour's energy spokeswoman, Moana Mackey, wanted more transparent and public scrutiny of proposed activities, in the wake of oil spills from the Gulf of Mexico and New Zealand's Rena sinking.
Up to 100 test wells, onshore and offshore, are proposed around New Zealand during the next two years, including deepwater drilling by two oil rigs and a new drilling ship, with two deepwater seabed holes near Dunedin.
The ''leaders' debate'' as a conference-end was a relative coup for organiser the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand (Pepanz), with Mr Bridges' appearance for the second day running underlining National's support for the oil and gas sector, which put $700 million in taxes and royalties into government coffers in 2012.
Mr Bridges was on the offensive, highlighting US shale field gas finds had halved its carbon emissions and that New Zealand should consider gas a ''transition fuel'' with a ''plethora'' of gas products to develop, while on the road to developing renewable energy sources.
''We in New Zealand are more of a gas play than oil play,'' he said of many non-commercial exploration results to date indicating seabed gas deposits, as opposed to condensate (oil).
On the polarising issue of deepwater drilling (depths beyond 400m), Mr Bridges said that since 1976, there had been eight deepwater holes without incident in New Zealand, the largest being 1440m in 1991.
Ms Mackey attacked Mr Bridges for having pushed through a legislative amendment that essentially barred public notification when explorers proposed to test drill offshore.
''[Drilling] depth is important, but it's not the over-riding issue. We want to see all the risk factors considered,'' she said.
Dr Russel highlighted that ''if a blowout preventer failed in 2500m of water'', the country did not have the resources to deal with the problem.
His two main issues were localised environmental effects, such as dealing with the Rena and Deepwater Horizon problems, and addressing climate change.
''Too many fossil fuel reserves have been discovered; why put more effort into discovering more? It's not rational or science-based.
''If you want to commit our kids to out-of-control climate change ... then give the kids `drill, baby, drill','' Dr Norman said.
Ms Mackey said given the tragedies of Rena, Pike River Coal and Deepwater Horizon, the public now held ''very significant concerns'' that the Government ''arrogantly ignored''.
Mr Bridges countered that public notification was in legislation when explorers moved into production mode, and highlighted consultation to date with numerous communities and iwi.
Ms Mackey said Labour did not intend to ''turn the tap off'' for oil and gas exploration, as it was a ''significant part of the economy'', but more resources had to be made available for alternative energy sources.
''The renewables sector wants to see the same enthusiasm as shown for the oil and gas sector, or in 50 years we'll be here having the same debate,'' she said.
Mr Bridges contended that Labour ''was not pragmatic but schizophrenic'' in its arguments.
He held out statistics on fracking, saying the US had been fracking since 1949 and New Zealand since 1989, neither logging any ''serious incidents'' and ''in my experience, the public is not concerned about fracking''.
Dr Norman said credible science had shown there was a risk fracked areas could cause ''leakage'' into the environment.
When asked, his ultimate stance was ruling out deepwater drilling and deepwater exploration, and no new coal mine developments.
''That's off the table. I can't see how we can control it,'' he said.
One comment by Ms Mackey, largely unchallenged, was that the new Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) was being held up for its ''know everything role'', while territorial authorities outside Taranaki had little experience dealing with consent applications.
It appears the next move will be the EPA's, with Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Dr Jan Wright due to release her second report on fracking.
Then the EPA has to begin assessing the inaugural applications for offshore exploration drilling in New Zealand's exclusive economic zone, covering 12 to 200 nautical miles off the coast.
• Reporter Simon Hartley was hosted at the conference by Pepanz.
