Power Simon: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — Second Reading 
Power Simon: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:611;Page:8597] 
SIMON POWER (NZ National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I want to make some comments about the passage of this bill. I did not find this an easy process at all. I found the process and the content of the bill difficult and there are two reasons for that. One reason is that I do not profess to be a scientist and it took some time for me as a member of the select committee to get my head around some of the case by case work and some of the more technical terms in the bill. Also if we were absolutely honest about it this is a pretty delicate issue in the sense that in many ways it ranges across what would traditionally be seen as the political spectrum. I know for example that friends of mine who are shall we say pretty right wing who would consider the ACT party to have socialist leanings on some of its economic policy nevertheless still have very strong views about the GE issue. It is one of those issues that if we deal with the second reading and the Committee stage in a flippant way then we do not do credit to the seriousness with which this issue should be taken. 
I do believe that it is an issue that to be fair particularly young people think pretty seriously about and they have not found it a particularly easy topic to deal with. Whilst they understand the importance of the economic growth arguments and the abilities of an economy and a country to—as Brian Donnelly would say—move forward there is still a great deal of scepticism and I have to say that that is represented not just by the Green Party. It is an issue that we will not see solved satisfactorily in my political lifetime. 
I pay tribute to Brian Donnelly who did a very good job chairing the select committee. It was not always easy actually. We had our moments but I do think Brian Donnelly did a very good job. 
I also want to pay a small tribute to my colleague Dr Paul Hutchison who took the lead for the National Party on the select committee and spent many hours sitting on the select committee when I was unable to. I thank him for the time he put in on behalf of our caucus. 
As I say it is a very very delicate issue. Once the select committee had begun the process of consideration there were still two or three issues that I believe were not dealt with well. Although National will continue to support the passage of the bill Dr Hutchison and I will propose a number of amendments during the Committee stage. I draw the attention of the House to two or three of those issues just to signal to the House and to the Minister some of the issues that we have concerns with. I know that this issue was raised briefly by the Hon Brian Donnelly and I refer to the way in which local government will implement the GE-free zones. The way in which Government members on the select committee reported on that issue in the commentary on the bill on page 5 does not leave local government in my view any the wiser about what it has to do. There is a problem when even today I see a newspaper report stating that one councillor made a bid today to have Horizons MW—formerly the Manawatu-Wanganui Regional Council—endorse extending a moratorium on GM and declaring part of that catchment a GE-free area. This is not going to be an easy hurdle for local government to come to terms with. 
One thing that I hope I have said consistently in this House when legislation like this is introduced is that it is the job of Parliament to inject certainty into the law. The last thing I want to see—and I am sure that this is the last thing members on both sides of the House bar a few in the Government want to see—is a whole lot of judicial activism ignited on these points. That is not going to help anybody. I believe that there is still much work to do on the issue of local government and its role in respect of creating GE-free zones or allegedly trying to do that—depending on whether the courts decide in the end that it has the power to do that. Government members seem completely convinced that that is not going to be a difficulty but I still have some way to go on that. 
I do want to raise two or three further points. The first is in respect of the liabilities and penalties under the bill. Members of the Education and Science Committee will know that that is something I took a particular interest in. We believe that the level of fines proposed in the legislation is extremely prohibitive and high. We also note that officials formed the view very early—and this is quite an important point—that from a liability perspective there was nothing sufficiently different about GE to justify a liability regime that was different in principle from those applied in other scenarios. That is an extraordinarily powerful piece of advice from officials. 
As members of the select committee will know that is why I was particularly concerned about section 124B(3) in clause 48. The bill that originally came before the select committee stated that the court must not make the pecuniary penalty order if it is satisfied that the person did not know and could not reasonably have known of the breach. What the select committee decided to do was to substantially alter the level of the burden on the applicant which I think is wrong. The clause now says that the court must not make the order if the person satisfies the court that he or she did not know and could not reasonably have known of the breach. That shifts the burden substantially from having the court itself making a determination about the circumstances in which that alleged breach occurred to requiring the individual or company in breach to prove it. That is quite a substantial hurdle to jump and quite a different burden from what would ordinarily be imposed which we think is odd given the officials’ advice that there was very little to justify a different liability regime. 
I just want to add to the concerns raised by Ken Shirley and the Hon Brian Donnelly about the Minister’s call-in powers. That stuff is just nuts—that is the best way I can describe it. It is just lunatic-fringe stuff. The Minister will decide an application if he or she considers that the decision will have significant cultural economic environmental ethical health international or spiritual effects. With the greatest of respect to the current Minister I say that she may be capable of making that determination but future Ministers may not be. As a lawyer when I look at a clause like that I see one thing: big cash. Lawyers are going to make a fortune out of that sort of clause. 
I will just go back to what I said two or three moments ago which is this. It is the responsibility of Parliament to pass certain and unambiguous law. What that clause is doing is simply opening the floodgates for a massive range of applications and discretions and a huge new lawyers’ area of expertise. Frankly when I look at this clause I can hear the lawyers out there heading down to the Mercedes dealers to close the deal on Monday morning. It is a seriously ambiguous and uncertain clause and it will cause all sorts of difficulties for whoever sits in that ministerial seat. 
I conclude by saying that National will be introducing amendments during the Committee stage. I give my thanks again to fellow members of the select committee. We look forward to a thorough investigation of the bill clause by clause during the Committee stage.