Fitzsimons Jeanette: Appropriation (2003/04 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Appropriation (2003/04 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:610;Page:7678] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 It is with considerable sadness that the Green Party cannot support the third reading of this legislation. Contrary to the views of National ACT and New Zealand First we do not see this Budget as being all bad. It contains some good initiatives and it continues some Green Party initiatives from previous years that have now become baselined. However that is all overridden by this Government’s refusal to listen to the people in their demand that we maintain the opportunity to grow and eat food that is free of genetically engineered (GE) organisms that we protect our environment from the unpredictable harm they could cause and that we protect our economic advantage in producing clean green healthy produce. 
We made it very clear at the last election that genetic engineering was an issue of confidence for us and it remains so. The 35 percent increase in our vote at that election despite the untruths that were told about us at the time was an endorsement of our position and we will keep our promise. That is why I move an amendment to the motion—namely:  
“to omit all the words after the word ‘That’ and substitute the following words: ‘this House cannot express confidence in this Labour-Progressive Government and their United supporters because they are determined to promote the release into our farms fields and environment of unpredictable genetically engineered organisms despite strong opposition from consumers growers food manufacturers exporters economists environmentalists health workers local authorities churches and ordinary people with common sense.’ ” 
It is a pity things have come to this pass because as I said there are some good initiatives in this Budget. This Government is the first to have grasped the nettle of climate change and put in place at least some measures to help us to observe the Kyoto Protocol. Energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy now have a statutory role under the national strategy. Research is under way on agricultural emissions. Two wind electricity projects are planned with the help of Kyoto credits and although that is little and late it is far more than any previous Government has done. 
Sales of public assets have stopped and there is a commitment to returning the rail track to public ownership investing in it and restoring it to a useful state. The Government even though we are not supporting it on confidence and supply has listened to the Greens’ proposals repeated for 2 years now to regain the tracks and it is taking our advice. We have a new land transport strategy that prepares for the 21st century by recognising sustainability as a vital goal and widening the vision to include all modes of land transport. Under our cooperation agreement with the Government we have contributed to that strategy and to the legislation that flows from it. 
We have supported legislation to improve health and safety in the workplace fairer employment rights and the comprehensive re-write of the Local Government Act. With Nandor Tanczos’ Clean Slate Bill we prompted the Government to introduce its own bill on that topic and we have worked with the Government to incorporate much of our position. We welcomed the decision to stay out of the United States’ invasion of Iraq and to support the UN though we are less happy with the decision to send army engineers into a war zone where they are not particularly welcome by the locals. 
There have been negatives too. The global assault on civil liberties that followed September 11 has been one of the more disturbing aspects of the last couple of years. Unfortunately the New Zealand Government has not been immune to the international hysteria and has joined in on the war against freedom. No fewer than four bills have been introduced or passed in the last year that undermine our rights as citizens to speak our minds and to carry out our lives free from the secret intervention of the State security services. The Greens were the only party to oppose those restrictions and to stand up for freedom. Then there was this week’s slap in the face for beneficiaries which seems to have been driven more by focus groups than by any attempt at economic justice. 
My co-leader Rod Donald said in the first reading debate: “The Budget surplus is a fraud. It is built on the backs of Kiwi kids living in poverty hardworking low-income families who need a tax break and young people who are shut out of affordable tertiary education.” I endorse those comments. We are disappointed at the continued refusal to recognise the poverty that restricts opportunity for so many of our people especially when Dr Cullen crows about his Budget surplus. 
But the defining point for us is the intransigence of the Government on genetic engineering and that is why we cannot vote for this Budget. As the only nine parliamentary representatives of the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who do not want GE released into their food or their environment we promised those people our vote would be conditional on preserving New Zealand’s GE-free status except for the many beneficial uses of GE in a contained laboratory. Let us remember that the polls tell us we are not representing a minority here. The most recent poll asked about preserving GE-free food production in New Zealand at least until our markets will accept it and an overwhelming 80 percent of New Zealanders supported that policy. Once one gets outside this building with its blinkered views its half-baked science and its political slogans and one engages with the real world of common sense one finds that ours is the majority view. 
Since the Government made its decision to promote the release of GE a lot of evidence has accumulated. There would be no loss of face if the Government were to engage with that evidence and change its mind. There is no shame in allowing the new facts to get in the way of old prejudices. The GE-free movement would congratulate the Government not scoff at it. Let us look at some of what has happened since the royal commission reported and the Government rejected its advice of caution and accepted its advice to proceed—things that no one could have known at the time. 
According to the panel of independent scientists which includes a number of household names GE crops have failed to deliver their promised benefits. They have not significantly increased yields or reduced herbicide or pesticide use. The scientists call to put this technology on hold until we know a lot more is based on the finding that there can be no co-existence of GE and non-GE crops and that contamination is unavoidable. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry report recommended by the royal commission found that co-existence can occur only if all non-GE crops accept a contamination level of 1 percent which growers consumers and overseas markets do not want. That independent panel of scientists points to growing problems on the farm with herbicide-resistant weeds and safety concerns that have never been investigated. 
The European Union has adopted labelling rules that will require all New Zealand’s food exports to the European Union to be labelled as containing GE material if we adopt that 1 percent threshold for allowable contamination and the supermarkets there have said that they simply will not buy anything labelled as GE because their consumers do not want it. Although the gene technology regulator in Australia has approved GE canola for growing there none will be grown because all the states where it could be grown have imposed their own bans of one kind or another. They see a market advantage in doing that and if we persist in the foolish plan to release GE food crops we will be at a marketing disadvantage compared with Australia. 
The science has also moved on. Two years ago scientists thought there were some 150000 genes in the human genome; now they have reduced that to just 30000. The point of that is not just that we know so little or we keep finding out we were wrong but rather that the whole basis of genetic engineering the belief that genes alone control inheritance and that each gene codes for only one characteristic is wrong. Thirty thousand genes are not enough to control human inheritance and other factors must be involved. When we transfer genes what else are we transferring without having any idea of its function? 
The Government is not even pretending to implement many of the recommendations of the royal commission such as not using food animals or plants to produce pharmaceuticals allowing councils to establish after consultation with their communities GE-exclusion zones to protect local production and having a strategy to protect bees. The only strategy to protect bees announced by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry after months of research is that beekeepers will be responsible for finding out on the Internet where the GE crops are grown and for moving their hives 6 kilometres away from them—great! The period of constraint as the Government likes to call it is supposed to allow research to be done on a key concern of the royal commission the “significant gaps in our knowledge about the effects on soils on native species and on horizontal gene transfer”. A contract has been let to examine those things. When will they be reported on? The report will be years away. What does the Government plan to do if that report comes back with a list of dos and don’ts to prevent the horizontal gene transfer of dangerous genetic material and pollen from GE corn is already blowing all over our farms?