Fitzsimons Jeanette: General Debates 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: General Debates 
[Volume:610;Page:7238] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 A couple of weeks ago the Government finally released the report of the panel set up last year to review the capacity and the capability of the Environmental Risk Management Authority to carry out the increased responsibilities it will have if the moratorium on the release of genetically engineered (GE) crops and animals is lifted in October. I have to speak about this matter during the general debate because it was judged yesterday not to be sufficiently important to require the time of the House in an urgent debate. But that report should worry every member of this Parliament who voted last year to lift the moratorium and who will shortly have to vote on legislation to facilitate that release by allowing for conditions to be set. 
The Government has said repeatedly that it is proceeding with caution in the release of GE organisms. Its whole case for allowing release rests on the cautious case by case assessment by an expert body which is the Environmental Risk Management Authority. Keen to wash its hands of any political responsibility for the possible consequences of release it is leaving more and more to the expert judgment of the Environmental Risk Management Authority. Yet this review initiated by the Government and commissioned by the Government with terms of reference agreed with the Green Party has now shown that this expert body is not sufficiently expert; that it is dysfunctional; that the authority has allowed the staff to usurp its role of making judgments; that its chief executive regularly rewrites staff scientific reports without giving reasons; that it is rule-bound and has a culture of ticking the boxes to avoid judicial review rather than taking a strategic approach in considering the big picture; that it weighs evidence from applicants more heavily than evidence from submitters; and that it is more concerned with the risk of missing an opportunity to profit from genetic engineering than it is with the risks of damage from a consent gone wrong. If this is a picture of the body that is all that stands between us and the destruction of our agricultural markets then we should be very very afraid. 
The question is: can it be fixed by October? Replies to my questions in the House yesterday by the Minister for the Environment are not reassuring. Challenged with the finding of the review team—that the authority has a skewed approach to risk treats applicants more seriously than submitters and does not give the same attention to the benefits of caution as it does to the benefits of taking risks—the Minister could only quote out of context a remark that the authority should be more flexible. This related in the review to the tendency for the authority to merely tick boxes and get bogged down in a rigid process but the Minister has seized on the word “flexible” and used it to mean that the Environmental Risk Management Authority should be even more tolerant of risk than it currently is. 
The Minister continues to claim that the authority and its staff have the necessary skills and expertise to do their job. That is in direct contradiction of the review which states that authority members lack skills in gene technology ecology and social science and that staff are missing expertise in environmental or public police development and strategic planning. These are not minor matters one would have thought given what the authority is in charge of. 
The review also referred to monitoring mishaps tardy compliance reports non-detection of errors and tensions between the Environmental Risk Management Authority and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry on regulating compliance matters which in its opinion is where the environmental risk management system is most vulnerable. The Minister has moved in new legislation to clarify that the ministry is responsible for compliance but the new system has not been tested and it will not have been by the time it is required to cope with the release of GE organisms. 
The key issue for those anxious about whether we have an adequate system in place is that the Government in the 4 months since it received this report has done nothing of note. The same members and the same chief executive are in place. The public is not confident that the remaining 3 months until the lifting of the moratorium are sufficient to address all these deficiencies if in fact the Minister wants to address them which is not clear. The sole safeguard on the release of GE organisms is a supposed strict regulatory system managed by the Environmental Risk Management Authority. This has fallen down to the point where we can no longer claim that release is subject to strict oversight and safety systems. It must at the very least be delayed until these matters are remedied. 
Evidence is accumulating that the public agrees. In the last 2 weeks one poll showed that 54 percent of New Zealanders including two-thirds of Labour’s own voters want the moratorium extended in its totality. Today’s release of a Colmar Brunton poll shows that 80 percent of New Zealanders want the moratorium continued for food at least until our export markets will accept GE products.