Donnelly Brian: Third Readings 
Donnelly Brian: Third Readings 
[Volume:612;Page:9127] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 Today is a day of shame for the Green Party. Within this very hour the Green Party having made no mention of planning to do this in its manifesto—not a mention—voted for the Supreme Court Bill. Without those Green votes the Government could not have passed that legislation. The Green Party has been prepared to support the Government on an issue that it never told the public it would support. What the Green Party told the electorate prior to the 2002 election was this: “If the Government proceeds to lift the GE moratorium we will bring the Government down.” That is what the Greens said and many people voted for the Greens on the basis of that solemn pledge. A number of Green MPs are in this House only because they gathered those votes and Metiria Turia is an example. 
So on the very day that the new organisms and other matters legislation is to be passed what do the Greens do? Do they make it uncomfortable for the Government? Do they say: “Put that new organisms and other matters legislation through and do not expect us to vote for any more of your legislation.”? The Greens held all the bargaining chips over the Supreme Court legislation. Why did they not use those bargaining chips to ensure this legislation did not progress? Why are they meekly allowing this legislation to pass and at the same time on the same day providing the Labour Government with critical votes to pass legislation about something that they had not mentioned to anyone prior to the last election? The Greens simply have lost any semblance of credibility over this issue. 
Following the royal commission New Zealand First took the position that New Zealand needed to proceed with extreme caution. We are a country that is dependent upon the export of agricultural and grown goods. It is as risky to the future well-being of New Zealand to put our heads in the sand as it is to rush ahead in a gung-ho fashion with this relatively new technology so New Zealand First supported the imposition of the moratorium. We believe that within its recommendations the royal commission implied the need for such a moratorium in order for certain work to be carried out so that a more robust set of regulations were in place prior to the first application for commercial release being submitted—and members must remember that the critical issue is commercial release not research which has been proceeding right through the era of this moratorium. 
However New Zealand First was very clear that prior to the lifting of the moratorium we would reassess the situation. We have carried out such an assessment and we have three serious concerns with the current situation. The first is around applications for commercial release of GE foodstuffs. I never thought that I would be agreeing almost point to point with Jim Anderton but I did agree with his previous speech. 
Hon Jim Anderton 
: It’s a free country. 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: Yes it is. We know that any such application is not likely within the next 2 years—that is the first thing. We know it is not likely; it is very highly unlikely. We also know that consumer behaviour is determined by perceptions not necessarily by rigorous scrutiny of scientific evidence. It is also clear that if people particularly in Europe and Japan believe our food chain could be contaminated by GE product that could have serious negative consequences for our economic well-being. 
Considerable economic modelling suggests that there is a significant level of risk. Therefore New Zealand First asks this question: if there is no chance of an application being submitted in the next 2 years why do we not make it clear to overseas consumers of New Zealand foodstuffs that there is no risk of GE contamination whatsoever? New Zealand First is also unconvinced that the Environmental Risk Management Authority has developed a robust process to determine the risk to the economy of any such application. The Minister tells us that the methodology will be prepared by 30 October—in other words “trust us we know what we’re doing”. The authority has had more than 2 years and it does not inspire confidence that such a methodology still has not been developed and has not been able to be scrutinised. Moreover the Minister has already told this House that she will almost certainly use her call-in powers for the first applications relating to foodstuffs. Do members remember the Prime Minister’s statements about not wanting to be trapped like a possum in the headlights? The Minister seems to be saying: “Come on car.” She seems to be saying she is quite happy to step into the middle of the road in the dark. 
New Zealand First is disappointed that its amendment to retain a moratorium on commercial release of GE foodstuffs for only another 2 years was lost. That was a pivotal point in our final decision whether to support this legislation. I can say here and now that New Zealand First is in the process of developing a member’s bill to re-impose a moratorium on applications for commercial release of GE foodstuffs. The legislation has already been drafted it is going through its refinement process and we hope to have it ready by the next ballot. 
Our second concern is around the mandatory buffer zones recommended by the royal commission. It is true that the royal commission said that these should be on a case by case basis but I am sure that what it meant was not: “We will wait until an application is received and then we will consider what the zones should be.” The Government has belatedly funded some work on this issue through Lincoln University but that will not be reported back until late 2004. It is too little too late. 
The issues around buffer zones are critical to the principal of preserving opportunities which was highlighted by the royal commission. I say to Dr Paul Hutchison that we listened. It hardly inspires confidence to be told: “Oh we’ll think about those matters when we get the applications.” I say to the Minister that that is not a satisfactory position to take and it lends weight to New Zealand First’s proposition that applications for foodstuffs should not be allowed until there is a framework within which the best management decisions can be made. 
The third matter in this legislation on which New Zealand First has serious concerns is the way in which local government has been completely sidelined. At best guess what we are left with is a legal framework in which local authorities have responsibility for the environment within their defined boundaries and in which they have to take into consideration economic and social issues. However when it comes to GE local authorities have been completely sidelined. It would appear that they can bring in anti-GE bylaws but if they ever impose those bylaws they will inevitably be sued and would almost certainly lose with a subsequent loss of ratepayers’ money in the process. 
Local government has been put between a rock and a hard place. It will require a court case and a legal judgment to determine what local authorities’ powers actually are. It is totally unsatisfactory to set up legislation the designers of which cannot say clearly what it states. It is simply just not good enough by a long shot. 
New Zealand First will not be supporting this legislation. It cannot. Those are not our only concerns about this legislation. Our other concerns revolve around the additional grounds for ministerial call-in. There are two aspects to our concern. The first relates to the ministerial call-in powers around cultural ethical and spiritual issues. Traditional Maori beliefs are for example that all objects both animate and inanimate have a life force a mauri. As I have pointed out such a philosophy—animism—is not dissimilar to the beliefs of Druidism which is a set of religious beliefs from Western Europe and Britain around the time of the life of Christ. However the concern we have is that although in our public thinking we have moved on from such a set of beliefs while supporting the right of people to hold them in a private sense this legislation allows for such thinking to re-enter the public domain and we believe that that is a nonsense. 
Our second concern about the Minister’s call-in powers is that people seem not to recognise that the call-in powers create a two-edged sword. Most people read the legislation as saying that if there were a particular risk the Minister can have an even more rigorous process. Within a certain number of days the Minister can call something in and then put his or her own people on the Environmental Risk Management Authority’s panel so that when the authority reports it reports to the Minister who will make the final decision. That sounds good—it is an extra risk-management process but it is a two-edged sword. Let us suppose that an application came in that had the potential for economic gain but the Minister considered that the Environmental Risk Management Authority might come down too heavily on the side of environmental risk. In that circumstance the Minister could call in that application and the final decision would then be in the Minister’s hands. Members should think about that. 
I do not believe that National and ACT which are voting for these bills can possibly be comfortable with them in their present forms. They need to ask themselves what good and what harm the legislation would do. If they were to apply the risk management model to this legislation they might come to some different conclusions from the ones they have. 
To reiterate our position New Zealand First has supported all the work that has been done—from the work done by the royal commission through to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Amendment Bill the setting of the moratorium and the establishment of a conditional release through to this legislation. However our assessment of where we stand at this particular point in time is that we do not believe we have a rigorous enough regulatory process in place to be able to receive commercial applications for GE foodstuffs.