Kedgley Sue: Appropriation (2003/04 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Kedgley Sue: Appropriation (2003/04 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:610;Page:7691] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 As our leader has already pointed out earlier today the Green Party will not be able to support the third reading of this bill because this Government which projects itself as seemingly cautious sensible and pragmatic is defying common sense simple logic and the wishes of the vast majority of New Zealanders by lifting the moratorium on genetic engineering (GE) so that New Zealand can climb on the GE bandwagon and grow GE foods that no one wants to buy or eat. 
I have just come from listening to a Labour Minister the Rt Hon Michael Meacher who was the Minister for the Environment in the Blair Labour Government until he was recently tossed out because he questioned genetic engineering. No doubt if he had been here in New Zealand he would have suffered a similar fate. The Rt Hon Michael Meacher said that he was genuinely puzzled about why an export-oriented nation like New Zealand—arguably the world’s leading producer of agricultural products which has an outstanding branded image of being clean and green—would put at risk our brand and our world export markets to grow food for which there are no markets no consumer benefits and no economic benefits and for which even the claimed producer benefits have failed to come to pass. 
Michael Meacher confirmed to a very very large audience across the road—I have just been there—that the attitudes in Europe to GE food and let us remember that Europe is our largest single premium market show no sign of shifting and if anything are strengthening in their rejection deep suspicion and distrust of GE food. He predicted that that situation would continue for the foreseeable future. He pointed out that the new GE labelling and traceability laws of the European Union which will require every single GE ingredient in food to be labelled will require first of all guaranteed GE-free food supplies. The European Union will require any New Zealand exporter who is exporting to Europe to segregate food containing GE from GE-free food and to provide the Europeans with full traceability all the way through the process to prove that the food we are exporting is GE-free. 
 So why would we want to imperil our premium market? We have already had a warning with the latest GE corn contamination the Sunrise corn fiasco that even a tiny amount of contamination can imperil our markets—in this case the Japanese market—which want nothing less than guaranteed GE-free food supplies. 
Michael Meacher spent last week in Canada. I think it would be a wonderful idea if our Minister of Agriculture took a little visit to Canada to see just what the experience of the Canadian farmers has been with GE. They wholeheartedly embraced GE when it was introduced there. They believed the hype that it was going to introduce higher yields herbicide-resistant crops and so on and so forth. Now all of them from the major Canadian Farmers Union down are totally opposed to GE. Indeed the head of the Canadian Farmers Union went to England to say to the farmers there: “Don’t touch GE.” The contamination has spread throughout Canada yields have not increased and farmers in Canada are being sued by GE seed companies. They are now taking out full-page advertisements in the newspapers and waging a major campaign against Monsanto which is trying to introduce GE wheat there. The National Farmers Union GE Agribusiness and the Canadian Wheat Board are all implacably opposed to it. A court case has even been taken out saying: “Please we beg of you don’t grow genetically engineered wheat. What has happened in Canada has been a fiasco and we do not want any further disasters.” 
Why will our Government not listen to the former Environment Minister of the United Kingdom when he says that it will be a disaster for New Zealand and that there is no market for GE foods? He cannot understand what on earth this Government is doing.