Browning Steffan: Patents Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Browning Steffan: Patents Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 12 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5164. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
STEFFAN BROWNING (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party opposes this Patents Bill and it opposes it for a number of reasons. It actually sees some merit in a number of aspects of it but there are some glaring shortcomings with the bill. 
I will start in terms of the interests of Maori. We have a problem here. Albeit the Commerce Committee in its report suggested that Maori interests are looked after or could be looked after later on with amendments as part of a Government response to the Waitangi Tribunal’s report on Wai 262 the bill is actually woeful in terms of support for Maori interests and for indigenous plants which are very important for the whole of New Zealand. 
If we look at the Maori advisory committee that is to be set up as part of this bill the Commissioner of Patents appoints a committee called the Maori advisory committee. The commissioner may at any time appoint a person to the committee or remove a person from the committee as the commissioner sees fit. I think that shows no sign of representation or certainty that Maori interests are being represented. The function of the committee is to advise the commissioner on request so the committee does not even get to get stuck in as it sees fit; it gives advice to the commissioner only on request. That is inadequate as well. The commissioner must consider but is not bound by advice given by the Maori advisory committee. Why not? What is the purpose of this committee which is appointed by the commissioner who may or may not even give it serious cognisance? The commissioner must consider its advice but it does not necessarily give any effect to it. And the committee may regulate its own procedure subject to any direction given by the commissioner. The Green Party sees this as woefully inadequate. 
I have tabled Supplementary Order Paper 124 on the crucial issue of making sure that companies cannot patent life. This bill is very very patchy in that area. We cannot afford intentionally or not to allow for the patenting of life forms. It would encourage biopiracy of indigenous resources. It would turn life forms into commodities to be used for profit. It would put up barriers to the free flow of scientific research. 
Patents were designed to ensure that inventors could gain financial returns for their hard work and ingenuity and that makes sense in terms of things—in terms of chemistry and physics—but not life. Living organisms were originally excluded from the patent system. They were a product of nature—that is what they were seen as a product of nature—not a human invention. 
But this changed in 1980 when courts elsewhere found that living organisms could be a human invention. What made this possible was genetic engineering. The tweaking of genes is now classed as an invention. There is very little invention about it. Most organisms—and my Supplementary Order Paper 124 talks of exclusion from the Patents Bill of organisms—have 30000 genes whether it is a human a plant or whatever. Genetic engineering changes just one or two genes and butchers up a whole lot of others in the process with little regard to effects further on. But because they have just done that—one or two genes out of 30000-odd—then they say that they have got something significantly different and it deserves a patent. Rubbish! 
Organisms and genetics are part of our global living heritage. They are part of our growing heritage. Allowing the passing of this bill without supporting my Supplementary Order Paper will lead to the continued blocking of pure research of open research. Private profit-making from our collectively owned genes and resources will importantly continue the process of stealing resources this time including the intellectual property of Maori—removing it from the commons for private gain. Instead of rewarding ingenious inventors the patent system applied to living organisms is rewarding just big business. 
 These industries seek out organisms draw upon the intellectual property of indigenous peoples and then use laboratory techniques to isolate parts of those organisms and patent them. Teams are bioprospecting—we hear of them going into the jungles of South America or the scrublands forests or wetlands of New Zealand for that matter—to find plants and organisms that they will then try to claim some level of ownership over. Biopiracy is another issue. There are instances of plants that are absolutely used by full cultures where big business has gone in to patent them that so that it can have control of any potential gain on an international level. 
I have just toured this country with two Australian farmers to talk about the effect that genetic engineering has had in their communities. The important part of that is that the product of genetic engineering that affects them so much is so influential because it has a patent on it. They spoke to farmers and others all over New Zealand about the financial risks imposed on them by the patenting of life by others. What they have is a situation—and the best example was probably in parts of Western Australia and Victoria—where Monsanto and other companies have been allowed to let go a GE genetically engineered genetically modified or whatever you want to call it patented canola plant. Just a couple of genes were shifted in that plant out of 30000-odd and they have been able to patent it for resistance to a herbicide. 
But there is a problem with that for farmers. Not only do they have to pay a lot extra for the seed because they have been told all sorts of stuff—that it is going to be better for them—but there is contamination of neighbouring farms. Those farmers have no choice in it. Their farms are contaminated. But because there is a patent on the seeds Monsanto is able to claim royalties off them. So when the plants grow again the next year and there is contamination Monsanto can get end point royalties it can charge a fee for the seed and it can do all sorts on that. That is just unethical. It can happen only because of a patent on the seed. 
There is an increased cost of seed with a patent and not only that; sometimes farmers are obliged to follow particular agronomic instructions on how they are meant to grow the seeds and what sprays they are meant to use. There is an issue then that there is actually ownership. So Monsanto in this case actually owns the plant the material that is in the paddock of someone who did not want it. The company also then controls the supply chain. It says where to get something better than $50 less per tonne than normal for the end product and even where farmers have to deliver it if they want to get only $10 less a tonne. 
Patenting life is not the way forward and so I ask all the parties in this House to support at the Committee stage my Supplementary Order Paper to protect living organisms from being able to be patented. In New Zealand we have another vision. It is “100% Pure New Zealand” a clean green New Zealand and the Greens do not see any need for this sort of patenting in there. Thank you.