Donnelly Brian: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — In Committee 
Donnelly Brian: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:8939] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 While we are talking about liability I want to run through the speech given by Ian Ewen-Street. I put to him this scenario: he buys himself a car—I presume that even though he is a Green he has a car. He buys a car that has met— 
Ian Ewen-Street 
: I have a bicycle. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: Well a bicycle then that has met all the specifications. But he does not have one—I had better use the car example. He makes sure he has a warrant of fitness he does everything right and he goes on the road and is completely within the Road Code. He does not break any of the rules—nothing. Then for some ungodly reason the steering wheel or another part completely shatters and he hits somebody. Here is the question: I ask Mr Ian Ewen-Street whether he should be liable—because that is exactly what he is saying to people who put in an application through this process and who follow all the rules and all the regulations. He is saying that if some unforeseen thing occurs then they should be fully liable. Now that was explained to us by the officials. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: He does not bang cars. He would understand that. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: No no he would argue that the way to get cars off the road is to make sure that those people could be sued for $10 million. That is it basically if one is in breach of the rules and that was explained to us. 
However I want to raise the issue of local government t because I think the local governments of New Zealand have been treated very shabbily with regard to this particular bill. On the one hand the Government is saying to local governments: “You look after the environment and not only that we want you also to consider the economic considerations educational considerations and all those things but when it comes to GE we are going to ride completely roughshod over you. We have made a policy decision—the Environmental Risk Management Authority is the body that makes those decisions and once the authority has made a decision then you will have no say about it in your rohe.” One would think that the Government and officials would have said: “OK this is a high-level decision a policy decision but we will sit down with local government and ask what the implications are in terms of how and what should go into this legislation to make sure that it’s very clear where authority lies where liability lies and where responsibility lies.” Instead the Government did not even sit down with local government. That is why the Minister of Local Government is saying to local authorities that they should make applications on every particular case and that is an absolute and utter nonsense. 
The reality as was clarified to us by the officials is that local governments do have the powers to make by-laws regarding GMOs but if they ever tried to enforce them their backsides would be sued off them and they would almost certainly lose. That was not 100 percent certain so the only way it could be absolutely clarified is if a case were taken to court and as my colleague Simon Power quite rightly pointed out that is not a satisfactory procedure. It is up to Parliament to ensure that we clarify what the situation is and by the time it got to that stage and it was pointed out to us exactly—because we went on and on about this—what the lie of the land was it was really too late for us to do anything about it without all the policy work that was required around a decision like that. 
In the end all we have ended up with—and this is one part we are very unsatisfied with—is that local territories we believe have been treated shabbily in the processing of this bill. It is most unfortunate but it is the reality and as a result of that we will be supporting the Greens’ amendment along those lines purely and simply to make the point that this is not the way we should be developing legislation. [ 
Interruption 
] No we have to make the point; we have to stick with what we believe in. It is a matter of principles. In this particular case local government came to us and said it wanted better clarification and wanted to know where it lay. We will have a situation where local governments put through by-laws that will have no effect.