Just a sniff of an oily rag - Atlas and National

It was not until August 2016 that Ben Craven joined the NZ Initiative, an Atlas Network think tank in NZ ( formed by the likes of Christopher Luxon's former Chair of Air NZ Tony Carter - back in 2012 ) after Craven had spent just over two years at the other Atlas Network think tank in New Zealand - the Taxpayers Union.

Before his involvement with the Atlas Network think tanks, Craven had done a BA in political science and philosophy at Victoria University - and post graduate studies in communications at Massey. He'd also done five years in customer service on the InterIslander before getting into parliament, writing press releases for Winston Peters and providing MPs with research.

While he was at the NZ Institute between August 2016 to August 2018, Craven wrote columns ( mostly on their Insights Newsletter ) and managed a roadshow - but he also co-authored a local government report on Localism in New Zealand, in which he heavily quoted Hayek - the economist all Atlas Network disciples position as seated at the right hand of God.

Craven's Co-Author Hartwich from the Atlas Network in Australia ( where he had worked with Luke Malpass ( Stuff ) ) wrote about their joint essay :

"This essay explains how unusual New Zealand's centralism is when compared internationally. New Zealand's councils have limited fiscal autonomy. Their mandate is also much more restricted than local government in other parts of the world." wrote Hartwich on 28 February 2019.

In a nutshell Craven and Hartwich were leveraging off how Hapu groups worked really well without any central government and about a handful of other nations had more local government on a percentage basis than New Zealand so we needed to copy that.

Craven went on a mission to work for the Department of Internal Affairs between April 2018 and October 2019 where he advised about Te Matatini and handled OIA requests - while back at the ranch - Hartwich began getting very interested in how young Christopher Luxon had suddenly signalled he was leaving Air New Zealand - announced on 19 June 2019.

Low and behold on 19 July 2019 Hartwich extended a tentacle around Luxon and they travelled together to Copenhagen in a delegation - which marvelled at bridges and tunnels - and Hartwich and Luxon - talked to business leaders, academics, journalists and politicians, and visited companies, education facilities, and government and non-government organisations.

It was all about "policy inspiration" and it was not long before Hartwich had indoctrinated Luxon to say, "We believe in localism and devolution" about three times a day by my reckoning - and this meant shrinking central government ( classic Atlas ) and so - it was no surprise to anyone - when Luxon finally came clean that he was getting into politics - that his first assignment was local government - looking at three waters and - also how he was the bogus spokesperson for Maori development.

Meanwhile Craven made another career change and started a 1.5 year stint with BlacklandsPR - the same crowd who has recently handled the PR around the move back to pseudoephedrine in pharmacies. ( moral panic etc ). While craven was working at BlacklandsPR - one of his clients was - First Gas.

First Gas - headquartered in Taranaki owns and operates 4,800 kms of pipes in the North Island and was created in 2016 when Australian based "First Sentier Investors" bought Vector's gas distribution and transmission assets.

( Shell New Zealand has sold the Maui natural gas pipeline to this crowd for $335 million. The pipeline, which accounts for 78 per cent of the country's natural gas production )

Anyway - so this was all about distributing gas to power stations and dairy factories and industrial plants and even hospitals...but what was once ours back before 1994 - was all owned by a giant transnational ( originally Australian ) asset management company.

Craven was getting the inside oil here - and I should mention that while Craven was getting the word from First Gas and helping them with their PR - there's another connection - via James Willis - Nicola Willis' dad. ( Note Nicola is Atlas - former NZ Initiative director )

James Willis was a lawyer at Bell Gully for 25 years until 2007 and he reckons he had a whole lot to do with advising Maui ( Big oil companies ) about their contracts with the Crown. ( yes I read the contracts ).

The agreement was what is called a take or pay agreement and it promised that the reserves from Maui Gas would be maximised and this would reduce uncertainties so Shell, Todd, OMV NZ etc and downstream gas users would feel secure - and this involved saying the amount identified would be used and set a price - and that would be set for 30 years. ( a staggering length of commitment ).

Yes Maui soon started to dry up and long story short - gas suppliers wanted new places to supply gas to - so you get the picture - new reasons to keep supplying gas were invented.

Meanwhile the hunt for more gas was on - and James Willis got involved as Managing Director of an Australian Oil and Gas exploration group called Albers Group between 2007 and 2011...but get this - one of the companies in the group named Octanex - acquired four permits in offshore exploration all just north of the Maui Gas field off the coast of Taranaki.

PEP53473, PEP51906, PEP52593, and another one lol.

Strike me down with a feather.

Well can you imagine the fuss when Jacinda said no more of that activity and banned the further exploration of these sorts of permits in 2018?

James Willis hurried to sell these off and he sold them to NZ Oil and Gas - run by Alistair MacGregor who runs OGOG. OGOG is the oil and gas arm of the Ofer Global Group, a privately-held portfolio of international businesses chaired by Mr. Eyal Ofer - Monaco based Billionaire who purportedly used a 50-meter yacht owned by a company based in the Virgin Islands to secure a 15 million euro loan from Credit Suisse in 2015...and this was named in the Panama Papers ...

But back to James Willis he sold those offshore permits in July 2018 when the ban was still coming ...Jacinda announced it in April 2018 so he had acted pretty fast.

James was also a Crown treaty negotiator as you do - you know Big Oil and keeping that Treaty in mind - and I did find he got into some hot water for advising some folks not to bother with going through their Iwi - and to stick to hapu.

As I understand it James had a hand in the extending of the Maui Gas contract for another 30 years - and this caused Taranaki Iwi to kick up - about how it should have only been 15 years.

Ben Craven left BlacklandsPR where he had learned all about gas and pipelines and the security of gas supply so crucial to giant transnational investors - and hurried back to the NZ Initiative ( Atlas ) where he helped out between June 2021 till April 2022 - when it was realised he could line himself up with more of this Oil and Gas business...

Craven took a role between May 2022 - Jan 2024 as the Communications manager for Energy Resources Aotearoa - Energy Resources Aotearoa represents energy intensive businesses, from explorers and producers to distributors, sellers, and users, of energy resources like oil, LPG, natural gas, refined products, and hydrogen. ( Todd, Mobil etc )

It's important to note that it was only in March 2022 ( a few months before Craven took the job ) that Luxon's National went into the lead in the polls and stayed there so - the appointment of Craven into Energy Resources Aotearoa looks like strategic grooming by Atlas.

Sure enough this crowd wanted the changes we are now seeing to the RMA and - took the identical approach to the ETS as the NZ Initiative when it came to Climate change.

In January Craven blurted out on Twitter he'd scored a new role working for Simeon Brown as his Press Secretary - in Energy and Transport and Local Government - and Auckland.

And that is the summarised story of how Atlas and Big Oil got around and cuddled up to Luxon and Brown and - how they are now singing off the Atlas Network hymn sheet on - RMA reform, fast track consenting, localism and devolution and it's just a shot away - to figure out why references to Te Tiriti are being pulled out of statutes as Big Oil smile and apply for more offshore exploration permits.

Just a sniff of an oily rag - Atlas and National

G