Hutchison Paul: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — Second Reading 
Hutchison Paul: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:611;Page:8589] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I was pleased to concede to Mr Brian Donnelly and I acknowledge that he did a very good job as chairman under somewhat challenging conditions. But I want to mention that I wonder whether the Government and Minister Hobbs are protesting a little too much when the Minister talks about a conspiracy theory because I understand that at the Business Committee meeting yesterday the Government gave absolutely no indication that the bill would be introduced tonight. This is an unprecedented break of protocol that the Labour Government has once again— 
Jill Pettis 
: We didn’t know yesterday. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: Well it is either extremely untidy or indeed— 
[Interruption] 
—so it is extremely untidy. The Minister admits that it is extremely untidy and we would certainly go along with that. 
 This bill is a very important bill. It amends not only the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act but also the Biosecurity Act the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act and the Medicines Act. It is a controversial bill and it requires a measured and considered response. The National Party supports the bill but with reservations. We intend to add amendments to it. 
I must say that while I commend the Hon Brian Donnelly for his chairmanship I am somewhat appalled that New Zealand First has caved in when it comes to wanting to impose a moratorium. I suggest that it is almost a New Zealand First form of Druidism. I think that is a great pity because the National Party has consistently supported the major recommendations of the royal commission and I want to mention once again what the major conclusion was. The royal commission said that New Zealand should keep its options open. It went on to say “but we should proceed carefully minimising and managing risks. At the same time continuation of the development of conventional farming organic and integrated pest management should be facilitated.” Indeed National has consistently taken the view that we would follow an evidence-based scientific approach to the bill as being absolutely fundamental. We have agreed entirely with the royal commission that continuation of research is critical to New Zealand’s future. 
We applaud the fact that low-risk research will be streamlined in the bill but the Labour Government should have made that happen 2 years ago. Research institutions and universities around the country were calling for that to happen. I put up an amendment on the 2001 amendment bill but it was rejected by the Government. That has continued to cause extra costs for research organisations around New Zealand. It could have happened but the Labour Government stopped it and that is very unfortunate. 
One of the very very negative things about the bill is the fact that the Labour Government has continued to increase considerably the red tape around medium and high-risk research. That literally goes against the Government’s own Biotechnology Taskforce Report and Strategy Report. Undoubtedly it is the Government that has identified biotechnology as one of the key areas that is important for sustaining innovation and growth in New Zealand. After all back in the 1960s we had an economy and a per capita income that was third-best in the world. We are now wallowing towards the lower half of the OECD and on the policy settings of this Labour Government we are likely to continue to do so. The Government is cementing that in under this bill in terms of the compliance costs and difficult regulations it has made. The Biotechnology Taskforce stated: “Regulations must be efficient cost-effective and equal to international best practice and where appropriate must be acceptable to our major trading partners. Industry must have a regulatory environment that is transparent and predictable.” It goes on to state: “New Zealand has one of the most comprehensive regulatory regimes in the developed world. However compliance costs and delays related to public consultation are climbing. The public consultation process requires streamlining to improve cost and time overheads without compromising quality control. … The present system is overly prescriptive and easily drawn out.” 
 This is what this Labour Government has not addressed in this bill. I refer members to section 38A(2)(e) inserted into the principal Act by clause 18 under which the case by case requirement means that an application for a conditional release approval must include all the possible adverse effects of the organism on the environment. It may be that the judge in the Mothers Against Genetic Engineering case against AgResearch came out and said: “Well look we think this is inappropriate. It is impractical.” and made a ruling against Mothers Against Genetic Engineering. However I would have thought that the Government should explicitly make sure that quite ridiculous impositions on research applications like this should not be imposed. 
Second of course is the full public consultation requirement for all research categories in containment—again hugely onerous and supported by the Government’s own biotechnology task force which it has ignored. Thirdly there are the ministerial call-in powers. In this area it is quite remarkable how the Government has managed to absolutely entangle the possibilities that could occur from the requirements of the Minister’s call-in powers. Because they are so wide the Minister may direct that he or she will decide on an application under this Act if the Minister considers that the decision on the application will have significant cultural economic environmental ethical health international or spiritual effects. 
It is no wonder that the Environment Risk Management Authority tells us that it can process the science in 6 weeks but it can take 6 months to infinity to process the cultural spiritual and ethical areas. We have seen this with the Resource Management Act. Once again we are seeing this Labour Government imposing such criteria in an area in which its own advisers say it is quite inappropriate. For instance when we asked the chair of the Bioethics Council whether he knew what the principles of the treaty were he quite clearly said he did not know. This is an area of great concern. 
I want to speak for a moment about the reality of what is likely to happen when the moratorium comes off because at a “biopharming” conference held at the Royal Society some weeks ago Dr Bas Walker head of the Environmental Risk Management Authority said he knows of no pending applications for commercial release of GE in the near future and he knew of only a few applications for conditional release. Given the almost absurd hurdles required for consent and particularly for full commercial release the bill is in many respects a Clayton’s moratorium. 
There is no doubt that a moratorium is an extremely blunt instrument and one should not underestimate the lost opportunities that would have benefited mankind if in the past moratoria had been imposed on medicine science and industry. The reality of this new GE law is such that commercial release of GE crops in New Zealand in the near future is remote. However the Government has not heeded its own task force when it comes to red tape. The bill does not provide for transparency predictability or world-best regulatory practice. In fact with regard to research the bill is in danger of becoming the biotechnology equivalent of the Resource Management Act. 
National intends to amend the somewhat serious and concerning deficiencies that the Labour Government has perpetrated on the quality of this bill.