Fitzsimons Jeanette: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — Second Reading 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:611;Page:8593] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 This is the bill that is supposed to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification but so transparently it does not. This is the bill that in practice lifts the moratorium on release of GE despite what Brian Donnelly says because even though in law that was done by last year’s legislation in practice it is being done by this bill. The reason for that is that under the law as it stands now no applications for release would get approval from the Environmental Risk Management Authority because it cannot legally put any conditions on them. So under the law as it stands there can be no buffer zones no codes of practice and no monitoring; so there would in practice be no release. Instead any application for release would have to meet the minimum standard set out in section 36 of the Act which means essentially that such releases offer no greater risks than other organisms already out there. That was the approach taken by the author of the original Act Simon Upton and I think that he was right. 
The National Party has moved away from that position of caution and the Labour Party possibly never shared it. So let it be very clear to all members in this House that if they vote for this bill they will be voting to release genetically engineered crops animals and micro-organisms into our environment our food production and our exports for the first time. That is something that is opposed not just by the vast majority of submitters on this bill but by 68 percent of the public according to polls. I want every MP in the Labour Party to take note that he or she is personally voting to destroy New Zealand’s GE-free “clean green” image for ever against the wishes of the vast majority of Labour voters. I want all Maori and Pacific Island MPs to take responsibility for voting against the wishes of their constituencies. I want all United Future MPs to take personal responsibility for what they are doing and to stop hiding behind statements that this bill has nothing to do with lifting the moratorium. 
This bill does not implement the recommendations of the royal commission because the Government has rejected many of them. There is no strategy for preserving opportunities—other than opportunities for GE. There is no strategy to protect the right to grow 100 percent GE-free crops. There is no strategy to protect bees from GE contamination. There is no economic analysis that shows that this bill will benefit New Zealand. The genetic engineering of food plants and animals to produce pharmaceuticals—thus making them unfit for consumption as food—is to be freely permitted. The research set up at the suggestion of the royal commission to study impacts will not report for years. In all of those ways the Government has rejected the report of the commission or rather it has accepted the “proceed” bit and rejected the “with caution” bit. 
The select committee process was in my view a charade and I felt embarrassed by being part of it—even as a non-voting member. Rigid rules were set whereby submissions that arrived slightly after the due date were rejected without any attempt even to find out if they had arrived at Parliament but not at the Select Committee Office. Submissions that did not have 20 copies were likewise rejected. The Hon Michael Meacher the UK Minister for the Environment during a period when that country was intensely involved in discussions about the future of GE was not given time by the committee so he was called by Greenpeace as a witness and was basically told off before he had even spoken and accused of a political stunt. We spent several whole days listening to all the rest of the evidence and there was a lot but we had only one meeting set down for the committee to consider all the issues raised in the submissions. I managed to get that extended to two meetings but they were still totally inadequate to consider the serious and well-researched submissions. 
The committee never engaged with the scientific issues raised by people like Professor Williams a geneticist from the University of California Professor Schubert from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California Associate Professor Wills from the University of Auckland Dr Sean Weaver from Victoria University Dr Trussell from the Friends of the Earth in Auckland and Dr Mann a biochemist retired from teaching at the Medical School. All of those scientists were trying to tell us there were serious flaws in our understanding of genetic science which means that in a generic sense it is not safe to allow these new organisms outside a contained laboratory. 
 I actually doubt that anyone on the committee or any of the advisers had the necessary background to engage with the issues these submitters were raising or the quantities of serious scientific papers they presented us with. Certainly the issues in those papers were never discussed by the committee. I hope the Government will never again try to claim that its policies on genetic engineering are science-based when Government members have so blatantly ignored the views of so many qualified scientists. 
Nor did the committee take any notice of the big food producers like Zespri ENZA Heinz-Wattie and Sanitarium Health Food which told us that their markets do not want GE and that their market access and prices would be damaged by release. No heed was paid to the small fast-growing niche-market producers that have built their business and profits on New Zealand’s GE-free reputation. 
Another group that got no satisfaction and whose concerns were not dealt with is local government. We had strong submissions from district councils like Kaipara Nelson and Marlborough from regional councils like Environment BOP and Environment Waikato and from Local Government New Zealand on behalf of all the councils. They were concerned about three things: they wanted clarity around their legal rights and responsibilities; they wanted to know that if a release went badly wrong they would not be liable for clean up as they are with contaminated sites; and they wanted a voice as to whether GE was used in their communities. On all three counts they have been denied by the committee and by the Government. 
The interface between the Resource Management Act and the Local Government Acts under which they normally operate and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act which is amended by this bill is very unclear. The Local Government Act 2002 charges councils with promoting the well-being of their communities and creates a high expectation of consultation and responsiveness to the wishes of those communities. “Promoting” is an active word and where communities have gone to their councils and asked for protection from the risks of GE councils feel a duty to act but the law leaves them in total confusion as to how they can act. The Resource Management Act requires them to develop in consultation with their communities plans for land use and rules for discharge of contaminants. Does that entitle them if their communities demand it to set GE-free zones to protect other growers? The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act provides for a nationwide generic approval process of application for release by an expert body which is the Environmental Risk Management Authority. The Resource Management Act and the Local Government Act provide for local solutions in keeping with local aspirations and explicitly recognise that communities can have different needs and different wishes. Councils were asking for clarity in the law and the select committee and the Government have said that that is just too hard and have done nothing. 
So the law will be decided again by case law not because the matter never came up when the legislation was passed but because Parliament has refused to deal with it. It should not be the role of the courts to make law like this because it will inevitably be the party with the deepest pockets that will be able to mount the best case. The Government is relying on the New Zealand Life Sciences Network and its wealthy overseas industry backers to take a case to the Environment Court to stop any council that tries to implement what its citizens want. Knowing that most councils will not try which is exactly the way the Government wants it. But it is too scared of the backlash to legislate over the top of local authorities and take any such role away from them. The cost of establishing case law will be high and it will be borne by the very people who have been so comprehensively ignored by this whole process. 
The committee made a decision early on not to listen to arguments that the release of GE was a good or a bad thing yet that is exactly what this bill is about—putting in place the conditions that allow that release. It was embarrassing to watch the paranoia of members who feared there would be violent protests at our meetings and who asked for special protection at those meetings. Of course there was never any threat because although people out there were and are very angry at being ignored by the Government and by the committee people who are giving up their own time and money to protect New Zealand’s reputation environment health and economy from the risks of GE do not resort to violence. 
So the bill is back in the House having been changed hardly at all in spite of the many days of hearings and the quality of the evidence presented. All those who participated in this charade will be accountable for that.