Donnelly Brian: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — In Committee 
Donnelly Brian: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:8924] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. You were not here during the discussion the last time we were in Committee but it was pointed out to the Chair at the time that the two significant parts are this part and particularly Part 2. There was a little bit of leniency on the question. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I thank the member for that. Does he seek the call? 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY 
: Yes I seek the call. This debate concerns the commencement date. Obviously the commencement date is critically important in terms of this bill because the moratorium comes off at 12 o’clock on the night before the legislation commences. The legislation aims to put in place a whole pile of recommendations from the royal commission for when the moratorium comes off. The Green Party put up an amendment that would make the commencement date 30 October 2008 and I want to explore the implications and effects of the passage of that particular amendment. 
The first question is whether the moratorium would be extended for another 5 years. The answer quite unequivocally is no. The moratorium is going to be lifted. The amendment means that we would have no legislation in place to accommodate some of those things. There would be no conditional release category available for the Environmental Risk Management Authority to apply to those applications that it may assess as requiring certain conditions to be put against them. There are other implications too. For example Nga Kaihautu Tikanga Taiao exists at the moment purely and simply at the whim of the Environmental Risk Management Authority as there is no statutory obligation to have this consultative body with Maori in place. This bill makes it a statutory responsibility. There would otherwise be no statutory responsibility for the authority to consult Maori in this particular way. It is the Green Party remember that is the guardian of tino rangatiratanga yet it is wanting to take away for another 5 years something that New Zealand First would support because we believe that it is part of the whole process. 
The Green amendment would take away the extensive additional penalties for anybody or any organisation that is in breach of the rules of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. In other words somebody who brought in GE organisms without authority would face huge increases in the penalties involved. The Green amendment would for the next 5 years put those large-scale penalties—obviously with companies like Monsanto in mind—on the back-burner. There is also the issue for example of streamlining the importation of low-risk GE organisms which the royal commission accepted needed to be streamlined through the institution-based science committees. When the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Amendment Act was put in place everyone agreed that we should try to get them in place as soon as possible because it was certainly seen as an obstacle to some of the scientific progress in this way. This would be put once again on the back-burner for another 5 years. 
There is another thing that would be put on the back-burner for another 5 years and it is very interesting that the Greens should be asking for this. This particular legislation extends the reasons for which the Minister can use his or her call-in powers to include cultural and spiritual values. We do not believe that it makes a whole lot of sense to have call-in powers on that basis anyhow and probably there should be an extension of the commencement date right out to infinity. But the Greens are saying that they want to put it on the back-burner for another 5 years. It seems so inconsistent with the Greens’ position to put up an amendment like this to put this legislation off for another 5 years when many of the things in it comply with the very things the Greens have been asking for. 
The rationale is that if we put in place conditional release the chance of some commercial release increases. It does not make any difference at all to the field trials that are going on. They have been going on for the last couple of years funded I remind members with money that has been voted in a Budget supported by the Greens. The Greens have voted for the money for field trials and experimentation in GE technology and there has been no moratorium on those for the last couple of years. Development trials have still continued and there has been no moratorium on those. Yet the money for funding those trials was voted for by the Greens—not by the National Party even though it supports this legislation. I suggest that the position taken by the Greens does not make sense.