Choudhary Ashraf: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Genetically Modified Organisms Moratorium Reinstatement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Choudhary Ashraf: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Genetically Modified Organisms Moratorium Reinstatement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:624;Page:19294] 
Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY (Labour) 
: 
 I take this opportunity to speak on the bill because I do not agree with it. I have a lot of respect for my friends in the Green Party and I agree with a lot of the things they say and do. But this is one area where I strongly disagree with the member who proposed this bill. Clearly I am one of those people who has some understanding of the issues because I have done a lot of research in agriculture particularly in the area of cropping. New Zealand as we know has done a lot of research and taken the lead both locally and internationally in developing a lot of technologies. We are an exporter of many of those technologies and have done very well in promoting and exporting crop seeds animals and animal and crop products over the years. I believe that for this country to survive economically and to raise our standard of living we have to be ahead of other competitors in the world in terms of creating new knowledge better technologies and better systems. We need to do this to increase productivity on the farm and to be able to export more and better quality products to the rest of the world. 
Ian Ewen-Street 
: That’s rubbish. 
Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY 
: It is totally right I say to my friend. I have been part of it. We have been developing these technologies for over 100 years and we have taken the lead in many of the technologies used in farming today. 
I think that what my friend Ian Ewen-Street is proposing is a backward step. Clearly we have to do the science in this country. We have to be at the cutting edge of the technologies in order to understand the new frontiers of product development in this country. If we do not have that opportunity to develop new technologies if we let other people take those technologies develop them and have the patents we can never compete with them. The way the world is going ahead today only two or three major international companies are producing seed for example. They will have the patents and the copyright for that seed and they are the ones that will benefit. If we are left behind there is no way we will be able to compete because we are basically an agricultural country. 
We had the opportunity through the moratorium for quite a while to try to get consensus among ourselves in this country and particularly to bring our scientists with us. We had that opportunity. We discussed the issues thoroughly locally and internationally and we came up with the view that we need to have a case by case situation and look at what is appropriate for our conditions and our environment—at what we should be developing to suit our environment and our agriculture. To say that we in this country should not do the research should not test any of the new seeds and should not look at new organisms is totally a backward step. The Greens wish to keep a cleaner greener environment and we are all for that but unless we have the leading edge in developing technology we will not be able to add value to what we export to the rest of the world. 
I have done a lot of research on trying to understand the pitfalls and the disadvantages of having for example GE seeds. I have never to my understanding read any research papers—papers that are peer reviewed—from anywhere in the world that say for example that genetically modified seeds are no good. There is no study that suggests any adverse impact on the environment. There is no study that shows any adverse impact on human health or animal health. [ 
Interruption 
] I ask that member to show me some research. A whole lot of studies are mentioned in the newspapers but there is nothing to say that this is any worse.