Hutchison Paul: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: New Organisms and Other Matters Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8851] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 The title of this very important legislation will be the “New Organisms and Other Matters Act” although there is a Supplementary Order Paper from the Minister for the Environment stating that the bill will be split into four. Those four titles are relevant because they reflect the four basic Acts that this bill is built on. 
But in terms of thinking about the title “New Organisms and Other Matters Act” we certainly have to think about the first principles relating to genetic modification in New Zealand and the recommendations of the royal commission. I note that one of the major recommendations was that continuation of research is critical to New Zealand’s future. As in the past we should go forward but with care. What worries me about the title and the way in which the Labour Government has managed this bill is that while in words there are opportunities for research to go forward in actual fact the bill only strengthens the hurdles when it comes to anything other than low-risk research and increases the compliance costs. I think perhaps it would be more appropriate to consider a title along the lines of: “Labour’s Let’s Heap Compliance Costs and Hurdles on to Research Act”. 
That is a theme of this Labour Government. There was an opportunity with the Resource Management Act to make some huge differences to progress New Zealand forward but Labour did the very opposite. Here there was also an opportunity but again unfortunately it has done the very opposite. Its own biotechnology strategy and biotechnology taskforce have been absolutely clear. They have said that in order to progress in New Zealand we must have transparency predictability and best regulatory practice. Unfortunately this does not happen and the title does not reflect it. Maybe the title should be the “New Organisms and Promotion of Unpredictability and Lack of Transparency Act”. Again that is a theme that the Labour Government has perpetrated not only in this very important Act but also in other legislation that it has brought to Parliament. 
I also note that one of the other major impediments to progress that the Labour Government has brought in in terms of this legislation is the widening of the call-in powers of the Minister. Maybe we should be calling it the “New Organisms and Extend the Call-in Powers of the Minister Even Though We Know it is Daft Act.” The Minister has said that recommendation 14.1 does call for her call-in powers to be widened. However if we go to the major recommendations of the royal commission we note that one of them is to form Toi te Taiao the Bioethics Council which will at a higher level have a hugely important place in addressing these issues. The bill does not define “cultural” “spiritual” or “ethical” yet the Government goes ahead and once again puts in a major block in terms of making things practical and instead perpetuates a very difficult complicated situation. So the title of this bill in no way reflects the reality of this legislation which Labour has painstakingly managed to increase the bureaucracy of and the complexity of so that it works in reverse of Labour’s own biotechnology strategy.