English Bill: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — First Reading 
English Bill: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:608;Page:5333] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 The National Opposition will be supporting this bill but I must say with some deep reservations. Our reservations are based particularly on the perception that this has the look of a deal done by Helen Clark. That means it is very hard to pin down just exactly what the intention is. For those members who are interested in recalling the history of this bill the Greens asked for a royal commission on this matter. A royal commission was set up and carried out at an expense of $6 million and the Greens then decided that they would not accept the outcome. Subsequently a moratorium was put in place. We cannot help thinking as we look through the detail of the bill that while it contains a number of useful provisions the risk is that the measures in the bill are so restrictive that even when the moratorium expires it will be virtually impossible for an organism to be released. We could end up with the classic kind of Clark outcome—taking a position that we agree with that a science-based approach to genetic modification is appropriate for New Zealand and that it is important to the biological base of our economy that these technologies are available but on the other hand putting in place a set of rules so restrictive that genetically modified organisms cannot happen except at great expense and the only people who can really afford that are the State-owned organisations that research in this area. 
As I said there are some useful provisions in this bill. We agree with the different grades of release and the capacity of the technical committees to release minor genetically modified organisms represents a step forward. But there are two particular matters I want to draw the House’s attention to—firstly the way that the bill deals with Maori views on genetic modification because that is an important issue and secondly the way the Greens are going to deal with this legislation and its impact on the Government. I see in the explanatory note that the legislation is intended to give greater weighting to Maori views. I will be interested to hear from the Government just what the problem was that this change is meant to solve. There have already been court cases regarding Maori views on genetic modification. 
The Environmental Risk Management Authority has turned itself inside out as did the royal commission to hear Maori views on genetic modification. I have made the point in respect of other legislation that we need to be careful about giving too much weight to any particular spiritual view—particularly when the policy position is that progress on genetic modification proceeding with caution ought to have a scientific base to it. We know that the Maori views on this are not necessarily scientifically based that some have quite extreme views about genetic modification and a good number have quite practical views about it. The way the bill deals with it is something of a cop-out. It sets up the new statutory committee but that is all it does. I see the Minister smiling because that was a deliberate play. The bill just sets it up. It gives no statutory definition or limit to the role of that committee except to say that it must give advice to the Environmental Risk Management Authority. In that sense it is a parliamentary cop-out. How those views are handled is intrinsic to any progress with genetic modification in New Zealand and the Parliament with this legislation is doing two things at once. It is giving greater weight to Maori views but no prescription as to the role they might play in any approval process. 
I also note that clause 36 extends the Minister’s call-in powers by including a reference to spiritual matters. That is opening a Pandora’s box. This is now giving ministerial discretion to decide about the weightings of spiritual matters alongside environmental and ethical matters. I do not believe that this Minister or any other Minister is any better qualified than anyone else to call in an application on the basis of its spiritual significance. I look forward to the Government explaining to us exactly what kind of spiritual significance it believes may warrant a ministerial call-in. What kind of thing could be so nationally significant on a spiritual basis? I say this as someone who has spiritual beliefs. I do not regard the Minister as competent at all to decide on their significance particularly with regard to that kind of process. The Minister says she will never do it so why is it in the bill other than as some kind of tokenism? 
That brings me to probably the most important implication of this bill and that is the implications for the coalition Government. I remember the photos in the Christchurch  
Press 
 of Rod Donald in his new suit just before the election. He went out and bought his new suit because that was the one he wanted to wear to his first Cabinet meeting. But of course after election night he found that Helen Clark had other plans for the new suit and they were that Rod Donald should wear it while he languished in some kind of ill-defined cohabitation with the Government rather than in a specific relationship. Peter Dunne was the man who got to wear his new suit into coalition arrangements with the Government. 
I hear now that the Greens have some plans for the time after the expiry of the moratorium. They cannot be plans that the Government—and certainly not United Future—is too keen on at the moment. In the first place this bill is going anywhere but to the select committee chaired by Jeanette Fitzsimons. So it is going off to the Education and Science Committee instead of the Local Government and Environment Committee. I wonder why that is. Is it because the Prime Minister cannot stand that woman—as she tells anyone who will listen? I think it is. I think that is why the bill is going to that committee. But the Greens have plans and that is so particularly for the United Future party. I say to that party that it needs to consider this matter particularly as it has already agreed on a shonky process for dealing with this legislation. United Future is in an arrangement with the Government which is the arrangement the Greens want. The Greens are making it plain to anyone who listens that once the moratorium has expired they expect to take their rightful place as the left-wing party in this Parliament alongside the increasingly left-wing Government in a proper coalition arrangement—particularly one that puts Rod Donald at the Cabinet table. Rod Donald is totally motivated by personal ambition; Jeanette Fitzsimons I believe is less motivated by personal ambition. 
So we will see a process of Helen Clark changing partners. She wants to get rid of the United Future party because the Greens want it got rid of and there is no particular point to its being in coalition with Labour because its members never deliver anything from that coalition except the Families Commission and expensive bureaucracy. The Greens will then get alongside the Government. I believe that is the best arrangement that reflects the views of this Parliament—the two left-wing parties together and the United Future party which actually is not left-wing rightfully in the Opposition opposing the Government or at the very least in some arms-length arrangement that reflects the fact it does not agree with Labour on much at all but Peter Dunne would like it to look as if it did. 
So this legislation is critical to the future make-up of the Government in this Parliament. The bill will be passed before the moratorium expires with the Greens in opposition to the bill no doubt. But the Greens are making it plain that once the moratorium expires they will give up their principled position of opposition to genetic modification (GM) and work hard to dislodge United Future and get their own party in as the partner of the Government. We will support that because we believe it reflects much better the direction that Labour is going in. The Greens will be much more comfortable with that direction than will United Future—except on this GM issue of course on which we share Labour’s view—and United Future will find that the increasing discomfort it feels will take it away from Government and much closer to Opposition where we believe it belongs.