Ardern Shane: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Genetically Modified Organisms Moratorium Reinstatement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Ardern Shane: Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Genetically Modified Organisms Moratorium Reinstatement) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:624;Page:19289] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I am feeling quite nervous as I stand in opposition to this bill tonight because I totally agree with everything that the Minister for the Environment the Hon Marian Hobbs has just said and that is amazing. It makes me feel quite nervous I have to say. I say to my honourable colleague Ian Ewen-Street next door that I know he is a sound thinker and that he does his research. We have worked together on select committees before. He is an honourable member. One can understand why he is leaving the Green Party and one can understand why he is leaving Parliament. He is an honourable member but he is totally wrong on this issue. 
This bill is wrong and it is wrong for a range of reasons. The first one is this. The Green Party campaigned in 1999 against genetic modification. Fair enough—it is a good slogan and the party represents the environmentalists. That is great and I have no argument with that. It is those members’ right to do so. Part of the deal when they came into Government as coalition partners with Labour was to set up a royal commission to look into the whole topic that they had been campaigning against. So the Green Party along with the Labour Government Ministers hand-picked the members of the royal commission. One can bet that part of the deal was that the Green Party had a major input into that and I am sure that Ian Ewen-Street may have had a view on that as well. That royal commission sat for weeks. It listened to international experts and local experts scientists doctors philosophers politicians—you name it. It went through an extensive exercise. At the end of it it came out with four volumes of findings and the Government implemented what the royal commission recommended. 
The Government basically recommended carrying on with what the royal commission recommended. Now who could argue with that? Surprise surprise—the Green Party which recommended that that would be its approach came out and vigorously opposed what the royal commission put forward. I say to the members of the Green Party that to the best of my knowledge there are no applications at all before the Environmental Risk Management Authority which arguably should be the best judge of whether something that could be a risk to our environment—or our future as the Green Party would put it—should take place. There are no applications before the authority. The authority’s job and what it is charged to do in life is to look at every case on its merits. There are no applications before it and it should look at every case on its merits. 
Let us go a little further. What we have seen here today is what the future Government will be like if—God forbid—Labour should win. We have seen a lot of media publicity about the odd spat that we on the right of centre may have from time to time in our ranks. There has been the odd little bit of media publicity about that but we never ever see reported the absolute fundamental differences that apply here in Parliament between the Greens and the Government. We never ever see that. I say to those who might be listening in radioland that that is an example of what they can expect going forward if—God forbid—Labour should win the next election. 
 I ask Phil Goff whether he thinks that Keith Locke would make a better Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade. That is my first question. Does he think that that would be the case? That is probably what will happen. I ask members to think about that for a moment. It is well worth a moment’s thinking about. I think that is a question the public should be asking. 
My good colleague Lindsay Tisch who is a very good whip for the National Party tells me that there are 3356 nuclear radiation apparatus licences in New Zealand as we debate today. Presumably there are apparatuses to match the licences—I am not sure. But whether or not that is the case 3356 radiation licences are in existence in New Zealand today. So the question is why if that source of energy is so dreadful the Green Party being the principal supporter of the Government allows those licences to continue. I ask Mr Ian Ewen-Street why the Greens have not got into that. Why have they not fixed that up and cleaned those out? That is a question I want to know the answer to. There is no basis at all for the arguments the Greens put forward—none zero.