Browning Steffan: Patents Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Patents Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12966. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I would just like to address some of the issues that have come up from Labour members in regard to plants and patents. Labour members seem to think that we will lose the advantages that we have had in the development of different kiwifruit and apples and it is around the Plant Variety Rights Act. There is a distinct difference between a patent and the protections in the PlantVariety Rights Act and those very plants that they are talking of are protected regardless of my Supplementary Order Paper 124 because they are protected under a very strong Plant Variety Rights Act—that is not a patent. I will mention some of the limits or exemptions to a grant holder’s rights that allow for a more communal approach or reach into those plants that have got those protections. There is very good protection for those people who have bred or who have put that effort in to get those plants to fruition and then out into the market. Other persons are free to grow or use protected varieties for non-commercial purposes—so the community at large can benefit—but the commercial aspect is still protected for those who have developed them. Other persons are free to use the plants or parts of a protected variety for human consumption or for other non-propagating purposes. They are free to use a protected variety for plant breeding although the repeated use of a protected variety for the commercial production of an F1 hybrid seed is not permitted without the authority of the rights holder. There are some pretty strong protections for the breeders of the plant varieties but they do not need a patent so I think it would be good if our colleagues in Labour have a rethink there because the legislation certainly does not cut off that innovation and the commercial benefit for those who do that development.But on a moral level life is not an invention and should not be owned by any one person or corporation. Unfortunately with a patent just the little addition of a single gene can become the invention of someone who claims private ownership. So any animal bacteria cell virus or algae could be patented and as I say we have already got plants covered elsewhere. I will run through a little bit of history where this has run amok internationally with the patenting. I will use plants as an example even though we are not patenting them or an extreme version of them. You can add that once you start to put these bacterial traits or viruses or whatever into plants then you start to get into the world of patents. In 1994 the US Plant Variety Protection Act was amended incentivising breeders by no longer allowing farmers to save seed without a licence from the owner of the seed variety and ultimately they got into the area of patents. As a result the farmers become bound to pay licence fees and royalties to the companies developing them despite their prior universal right to save plant and exchange seed from their own harvests requiring the skills and knowledge of their localities.Modern biotech companies have claimed the rights over entire species and prevented access to their inventions by other scientists but it was the fact that they were able to allow for patents in there that really locked things up. The advent of patenting genes was followed by an extremely successful float on the stock market of a company calledGenentech which raised huge money. Those companies then saw the potential of a new stream of income and they encouraged development which has led to the monopolisation of the agricultural seed market which I mentioned earlier and a significant collapse of traditional seed markets. There is plenty of research supporting that.Monsanto actually got a patent on Roundup the weed killer and it was due to lapse after a period of time. So how was it going to manage and maintain that market? Well it patented some crops using what they call the “events”—an “event” is using some material from a micro-organism and putting it in. With these events as such being patented and being able to express that through crops Monsanto benefited because it had this Roundup ready technology tied into its genetically modified seeds. A technology fee was charged to farmers and then they had to pay a per-acre royalty on patented seeds and then they were also bound by an agreement that prevented them from saving the seed for planting in a subsequent year instead buying new seeds every year. This followed lots and lots of litigation about farmers not using their geneticallymodified seeds. I have seen the same thing in Australia. I am over there shortly and will be looking at some other situations where things have gone bad from contamination.But it is the actual micro-organisms that are involved in this; it is not the plants traditionally protected under the Plant Variety Rights Act. We are getting into all aspects of life and the genetic material being able to be patented. That went wrong because companies have become quite monopolistic in the way they have managed that in the United States and in some other countries. With the increased use of herbicides plants have now got resistance so now companies are patenting and doing new genetically modified varieties right through to having varieties modified so they can spray 24-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid on them as well. That is just so they can retain control of the food chain and be able to sell their herbicides and pesticides which although we were told would not increase in use have in fact increased hugely—significantly—in use. So now there are new varieties coming through with other micro-organisms and other traits being developed. Note that we say “against the patenting of traits” for very very good reason because this allows that control of what has happened over there.This is not about blocking innovation; it is about ensuring access for the community for farmers for researchers and for medicine to all these traits of these parts of life: the genetic material the microbes algae the cells of animals the different parts of animals which with a little tweak is something that they can own—something that is everybody’s. My colleague Metiria Turei talked before about the issues around theMāori advisory board and the group that would give recommendations if asked by the Commissioner of Patents. That comes down to the same core—the same aspect. It comes right down to the basis of life and whether it should be patentable. I hope that colleagues and other parties will reconsider and support all of the Green Party Supplementary Order Papers which will make this bill a really strong fantastic innovative bill. Thank you.