Hutchison Paul: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8860] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 In commencing this debate it is important to reiterate to the people from United Future who seem confused that we are also commencing four future Acts. Those four Acts are the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Amendment Act the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Act the Medicines Amendment Act and the Biosecurity Amendment Act. The commencement date states 30 October 2003 and it has huge significance because there appears to be great confusion as to whether this legislation actually removes the moratorium and it clearly does not. The moratorium was set down to be removed anyway. In fact there is confusion over where a legislated moratorium came into place through the Labour Government and where there was a voluntarily industry moratorium that came into place in 2000 and was observed by industry throughout New Zealand until such time as the Labour Government chose to put in its traditional blunt instrument a moratorium. Nevertheless that happened and this legislation is consequential to that being lifted anyway. 
However what is really important is that New Zealanders understand the realities of this legislation and what will commence. There are several clues to that. The real probability of whether there will be commercial release of genetically modified crops in New Zealand is extremely low. That has been clearly reiterated from two sources. Firstly about 2 months ago there was a conference at the royal society on biofarming and there the chief executive officer of the Environmental Risk Management Authority stated quite clearly that he did not expect there to be any commercial release of genetically modified crops in New Zealand in the next few years. However he said that there is a possibility that there may be a few applications for conditional release and that could include conditional commercial release. These distinctions are not well understood by the majority of people in the public and they are confused by many parliamentarians as well. 
But to add to that the other source comes from the Minister herself in answering questions from Jeanette Fitzsimons. She herself said in this Parliament that the reality of commercial release in New Zealand under this bill is just about zilch while she happens to be the Minister for the Environment. She might like to take a call and reiterate that but it happens to be the fact of the matter as I understand it. 
So when we talk about this commencement date we must also consider whether this legislation is very much a Clayton’s moratorium that has been imposed by the Minister for the Environment and that indeed instead of there being a blunt instrument she has just transferred that over to a somewhat insidious Clayton’s situation. It is very very important to understand the implications for that in situations that might cause New Zealanders to rethink the circumstances in New Zealand such as an epidemic of cholera for instance where indeed it is important to have legislation in place when there may be a need to have a genetically modified organism introduced into New Zealand reasonably quickly to save many hundreds of thousands of lives. That is just one possibility. It is important to be aware that this commencement date has a lot of significance and to understand what differentiates. 
What has concerned me a little bit has been one of the amendments put up by New Zealand First which is somewhat unusual. In fact I would call it an act of pre-medieval Druidism by New Zealand First.