Browning Steffan: Patents Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Patents Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12981. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I rise to speak to the third reading of the Patents Bill. Clearly we are disappointed that the Supplementary Order Papers that take away the ability to patent life or the traits of it and that provide some more support and substance to the committee that would be looking at issues affectingMāori were not agreed to.Because the bill—and we are supporting it—has substantive improvements on the previous Act what is showing up is that the bit that is really missing is around life and around the ability forMāori to actually have a serious meaningful part an assured part in the outcomes. It comes down to that essence of life—right down to the genetic material. I was disappointed to hear that Labour is supporting the bill because it is supporting genetic engineering effectively and that is the significant difference here. The bill is a very very good bill but it has a lack in that it supports genetic engineering in New Zealand and suggests that that might be a way forward for New Zealand and it clearly is not.I think it is time that New Zealand had a serious discussion around that. We have had significant years where all we have had are field trials except for one commercial release of something that has not yet been used—a genetically engineered vaccine for equine influenza that has not been used as far as I know. Everything else has been field trials. Every one of those field trials has had compliance issues and has had issues of contamination. I have brought over Australian farmers who have showed what the issue is when they have gone down the genetic engineering track in Australia and the issues in the community the conflict in the community when neighbour contaminates neighbour and actually degrades the value of their crop and degrades the value of their land.I will be visiting another farmer in Western Australia in a couple of weeks who is actually—Hon Simon Bridges: What’s his name?STEFFAN BROWNING: His name? You have a look. Google it up. You will be right. I will be visiting him. He is appearing in court along with his neighbour supported by Monsanto—David versus Goliath. Why should that farmer have lost the value of his crops just because his neighbour allowed something to drift over on to his place which has devalued the premium that he and his other neighbours were getting? Why should the councils in that area be subject to clean-up costs because this sort of material has got loose?I think that is a real question for New Zealand. We have not gone down that track yet and that is good. We can claim it as a benefit for New Zealand to get a premium for our goods our primary production in this country. The bill would have been extra special if it had effectively banned genetic engineering from being able to be patented here.Hon Simon Bridges: What would the Greens do?STEFFAN BROWNING: We have a very good vision and in New Zealand—remember—we have not got it. We have not got it commercialised in this country now and according to some we are doing just fine.We have got a vision around sustainability of clean agriculture clean primary production and maximising that when we go out to the world with the best possible value and the best possible brand. Genetic modification has no place in that brand. It is not wanted by consumers internationally. More and more information is coming about the negatives in that. We do not need it for biofuels. We do not need it out in our environment at all. We do not need it in our food even more. There is a real issue around the amount that might be in our food but the current Government—in fact the previous Government as well—was remiss in the level of compliance assurance around what was in our food. We have got GE food labelling laws that are soso but they are not even being reinforced by auditing or having a check on them.We have experts in this country and I will talk about Jack Heinemann from Canterbury University who is internationally renowned. He has got a book hereHope Not Hype: The Future of AgricultureGuided by the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge Science and Technology for Development. This is a big lump of scientists who have looked deeply into these things to see what is actually sustainable for the future what has gone wrong with this technology in the past and how we can learn from that. We are so lucky that we have not gone down the track that the US and certain South American countries and a few others have gone down. A number of them are pulling back from it and regions are pulling back because they are having very negative effects into their environments. They have also had limitations in public-good science because of the patents on organisms. It has reduced the ability to have the absolute best we could get through medical science because what is considered to be locking up for innovation to give rewards to those corporates ends up being a monopoly a manipulation or a strategic measure to block other research and other users out of what is everybody’s—what is life and what belongs to every one of us.We support the bill for those really positive things and as I say we are very very concerned about the major major gaps in there. They are the ability forMāori to have some genuine influence on things that matter to them—the essence of life in there—and the fact that we can see life patented. New Zealand could have been extra special there. It is great that we have seen the development around software and computer programs. What a fantastic day it is today when we are going to be voting that through and that is very very good. But for the rest of it it is unfortunate. So as I sit down I will still commend the Minister for the positive parts of the bill and the rest of our colleagues who are supporting the bill in its major substance. Thank you.