Third Readings

I move, That the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Amendment Bill, the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill (No 2), the Medicines Amendment Bill (No 2), and the Biosecurity Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a third time. I do this with pride—pride in a Government that has worked through these issues over many years. The legislation to allow the release of genetically modified organisms was passed in 1996. Let me repeat that: the law to release genetically modified organisms was passed in 1996. The legislation we hope to pass today adds a series of safeguards, such as conditional release, to the mix of controls that the Environmental Risk Management Authority can use. In 1996 when I was still a school principal I cannot recall any staff room arguments about genetic modification. I certainly cannot recall street marchers or naked protests, and I would remember those. But for all the lack of mass public concern, in our manifesto of 1999 the Labour Party promised a committee of inquiry, a royal commission, into genetic modification. We wanted to check whether the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act had enough safeguards. We wanted advice.

Why choose the royal commission? A royal commission gives a Government independent advice, having listened to arguments and tested assertions. In a rational society it is not enough to assert a risk or to assert a benefit without testing it. A royal commission is the highest body for hearing an investigation that we have available to us in New Zealand. Other mechanisms offer fewer opportunities for decision makers to obtain and to appreciate a full range of arguments in place of untested assertions or blatant misrepresentation such as toads and potatoes, or four-breasted women.

I am very much a rationalist, which is a drawback in the world of 6-second sound bites, aggressive interviews, and media hype. Decisions around genetic modification need to be made with rational consideration. That brings me to the moratoriums, for there have been two of them. The science and agricultural community agreed to a voluntary moratorium for the life of the royal commission. It did not apply for any field tests or general releases. That voluntary moratorium ended in 2001. The second moratorium on applications for general release was legislated for in 2002. The royal commission advised in 2001 that we could proceed with genetically modified releases straight away, but that there were improvements to the law that could be made. The Government set in place a time-bound moratorium to lift in October 2003 in order to make those legislative changes. We passed that legislation in 2002 before the election. The ending of the moratorium was known to voters.

I wish to thank the biotechnology industry. From 2000 to 2003 there has been a real brake on that industry for 3 years—a compulsory stop, in fact, on its genetically modified research. But this bill does not mean that there will be an instant acceleration to 100 kilometres per hour. This is a heavily regulated industry—far more so than in any other country in the world, including the countries in the European Union.

There were three ways New Zealand could have gone. One, ban work on genetic modification in the field for ever, which is the Greenpeace plan; two, allow some work, but make that decision on a case-by-case basis; three, leave totally unregulated, which is how the early genetically modified crop work has been done overseas. New Zealand has chosen the middle way, the cautious way, and this bill strengthens those precautions.

Like chemistry, like physics, and like surgery, there are risks in genetic modification, but there may be benefits, and some claim benefits already. Improved soil health through less ploughing to eliminate weeds, less volume of and less toxic pesticides used, new forms for the ingestion of medicines using food, new pest controls to attack possums or flystrike, and warning indicators for landmines or arsenic in water.

Yes, there are risks. But how can anyone be so sure of risk that he or she denies others the opportunity of exploring possible benefits? Galileo was hounded by the church because his observations told him that the planets, including earth, circled the sun. That upset the then current world views that the sun and planets circled the earth, with man at the epicentre—and I note “man”. Are we so certain that we know everything about ecological change and adaptation? Could there be more that we do not know? Is it so terrible to ask questions and to test the hypotheses? It would be terrible if, in so doing—in testing the hypotheses—we endangered people. But in New Zealand we do not. When it comes to food, any food on sale in New Zealand has to undergo rigorous and robust safety testing. People have a choice whether they eat genetically modified food. Any genetically modified food is labelled. There may be research work progressing on potatoes, but that does not mean that genetically modified potatoes, or any other genetically modified fresh food, will be on sale in New Zealand for, maybe, at least 5 years, and then only after food safety approval. So New Zealanders will not be forced to eat genetically modified food. They will have choice when, and if, genetically modified fresh food is ever offered for sale in New Zealand.

Organic growers want assurances that their crops will remain free of genetically modified organisms, and in this legislation we provide for conditional release. The conditions set will take into consideration research findings on pollen drift, and on foraging bees, including the 8-kilometre distance for bees asserted by a GE-free group today in one press release that I saw. Like the royal commission, this Government believes that we can allow organic crops, conventional crops, and genetically modified plants and animals to coexist. No one’s rights have to be curtailed. May I remind the House that an application cannot be granted if risks outweigh benefits, or needed answers cannot be given.

In life there are people who say “No” and there are people who say “Yes”. New Zealand needs to say “Yes”. New Zealand needs to do research. New Zealand needs to add value to its bioeconomy. Without such growth we will not be able to pay for environmental clean-ups, for education, for health improvements, for restorative justice, or for public transport. This is about growth and innovation, about preserving choice, about saying “Yes” to opportunity, and about moving forward. This legislation is about doing so with caution.

There are four bills. At the end of the debate the question by the presiding officer will be put to each bill separately.

The passage of this legislation, which regulates genetic engineering in New Zealand, is extremely important for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it is a litmus test as to whether political parties listened to the findings of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification, a commission that was well regarded around the world for being comprehensive and thoughtful in its recommendations. But secondly, it is also a litmus test as to whether New Zealand will allow a rational, evidenced-based scientific approach to prevail in New Zealand.

National is supporting this bill, but with reservations. We are supporting it because we view it as fundamental that we approach biotechnology in its widest sense with the best tools available, and that we are cautious, but that we use best-practice risk analysis following that evidenced-based scientific approach.

We are also supporting it because, as a country that has depended on agriculture and horticulture for well over 100 years, it is vital that we remain at the forefront of biotechnology. There are many reasons for this. The reasons are not only to progress and advance our primary products and add value to them, but also to apply the most contemporary technology to the very real biosecurity risks and threats we are faced with every day in this country. If we look back to Captain Cook in 1769—I think it was his second trip—when he introduced the buck and the doe rabbit to Queen Charlotte Sound, we see that we have had more serious threats to our biosecurity imposed during the 200 years since then than world-researched GE technology will ever present to New Zealand.

The possibilities of biotechnology in a huge range of areas are vast. Not only does it encompass agriculture, horticulture, medicine, and pharmaceuticals but it also provides very important tools to enhance and protect our environment. The royal commission absolutely explicitly drew attention to the fact that being GE-free in New Zealand was impractical, and it is quite wrong for the Greens—or, for that matter, the Sustainability Council—to pretend that such a status for New Zealand is practical, realistic, or in our best interests. In the field of medicine alone, if GE technology were not available to the thousands of diabetics in our country they would have to rely on pig insulin, with enormous associated risks. In my own field of gynaecology, women requiring reproductive treatment would have to rely on preparations made from pooled post-menopausal women’s urine rather than a highly purified, GE-recombinant DNA preparation. In the case of the diabetics, they would be highly likely to be exposed to the sort of infections we have with mad cow disease.

The opportunity costs of making research difficult in this vital area of biotechnology should not be underestimated. In the first reading of this legislation, Jeanette Fitzsimons, as usual, made great claims about food safety that she just cannot substantiate. She wants epidemiological studies that are not possible; no other foods have been subjected to the sorts of ridiculous studies she is calling for. It is curious that while the Greens want zero tolerance for GE foods and vaccines, they themselves are happy to bring in herbal remedies willy-nilly, and all sorts of other foods that have had absolutely no testing. I note that Mr Ewen-Street made fun of a certain cannabis compound—and he should not have. The Greens rationality and sincerity in this area just does not stack up.

It is important to re-emphasise the findings of the European Commission, which stated that, after 15 years and 400 trials, GE food was as safe as, if not safer than, conventional food. That finding was co-signed by 3,500 scientists, 13 Nobel laureates, the World Health Organization, the Royal Society, and a whole variety of other highly reputable organisations.

But what is important is the way forward. The royal commission emphasised that research is critical to New Zealand’s future. Even this afternoon in question time, the Minister for the Environment shied away from the fact that medium and high-risk GE medical research in New Zealand will be made so much harder, because of the added compliance costs she has insisted on. Labour has not only insisted on imposing compliance costs in the Resource Management Act, but the Minister is making this legislation the biotechnology equivalent of the Resource Management Act.

The Government has failed to listen to reasonable suggestions or to accept a comprehensive Supplementary Order Paper from National to diminish compliance costs and hurdles, but instead has insisted on widening the call-in powers of the Minister to include cultural, spiritual, and ethical issues. That is over and above the royal commission’s suggestions of installing the Bioethics Council, Toi te Taiao, and the Environmental Risk Management Authority’s Māori advisory committee, Nga Kaihautu Tikanga Taiao.

I am deeply concerned that the very thorough efforts of the Sustainability Council may backfire on New Zealand. It should listen to the mainstream producers in New Zealand who have supported the lifting of the moratorium, and I cite Fonterra, the forestry industry, the meat producers, Federated Farmers, and many others. I do acknowledge that Zespri, Heinz-Wattie, and Sanitarium have a different view. However, it is extremely important that options are kept open, that we proceed with caution in a rational manner, and that we do not resort to blunt instruments such as moratoriums. The Sustainability Council should take note that while Canada was increasing its area of GE crops to 15 million hectares, its exports of beef to “highly sensitive to GE” Japan went up tenfold. That is the reality of the situation.

Of course, it is absolutely vital that we are extremely cautious with the possibility of any conditional release. This legislation underpins the fact that that caution will occur. The hurdles in this legislation are quite extraordinary, and the reality is that commercial release will not happen without a compelling case. Given the outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome, and of AIDS a few decades ago, we should certainly have legislation and research in New Zealand that keeps open the possibility for us to be able to respond to that sort of outbreak in a rational, scientific way. It keeps us at the forefront of this hugely important field of biotechnology.

I end by saying that the National Party has consistently supported an approach that is evidence-based, and that looks to science in a highly rational way. National is very conscious that it is hugely important for our New Zealand agriculture, horticulture, and biosecurity, and for the enhancement of our environment, to have legislation that is not entangled by the hurdles and compliance costs that I believe the Labour Government, under pressure from the Greens, has succumbed to. I welcome this era in New Zealand, in which we at least have a rational, evidenced-based scientific approach to biotechnology.

I just point out that there is not a Labour Government; there is a Labour-Progressive coalition Government.

This afternoon, I wish to pay tribute to the leadership shown by Labour on this difficult and potentially divisive issue. The debate has often been coloured by misinformation and manipulation, and it is not easy for a political party in Government to deal with those matters. I respect Labour for showing leadership on an issue that involves cutting-edge science, and tremendous potential gains for medical treatment in particular and humankind in general.

However, it may come as a little surprise to the House that the Progressive party does not believe that this legislation has got it right for our nation, at this time. We support many aspects of this legislation, but we believe that the current moratorium on GM releases should be further extended for any genetically modified organisms that could possibly enter the human food chain. As many will know, in 2001 my colleague Matt Robson and I supported the motion of our former colleague Phillida Bunkle, to impose a temporary moratorium on the release into the environment of genetically modified organisms. It was an honour and source of some pride that two other parties—Labour and, indeed, New Zealand First—supported our party’s position at that time. We made it clear then that we did not believe in setting an arbitrary date on which the moratorium should be lifted in the future.

Consistent with that, earlier this year the Progressive party reserved its position on that issue within the Cabinet process. We wanted scientific and economic considerations to influence our planning, and the moratorium to be lifted only if a majority of this Parliament was of the view that that should occur, so we have this debate today.

Back in 2001, of course, ACT, National, United Future, and even the Greens, all voted against the moratorium for their own separate and, in my view, somewhat peculiar reasons. Labour and New Zealand First voted with us then. We voted in favour, not because we accepted that 29 October 2003 was necessarily the best time to lift the moratorium fully, but rather because we were voting for the moratorium to be imposed in the first place.

In the Progressive party’s view, as ratified by our recent inaugural conference, consumer resistance to genetic modification, or to genetically modified foods, appears to be hardening around the world, and more and more food suppliers overseas are seeking foods that can be guaranteed GM-free. What alarms us is that that is particularly true of the wealthier markets of Japan and Europe. Some New Zealand exporters tell us they are currently benefiting from promoting New Zealand’s GE-free status. They tell us that by changing the perception—and therefore, potentially, the reality—that New Zealand is no longer a GM-free food producer, we risk losing the edge that our current status affords us, and it could cost us jobs and export sales. The Progressives are not convinced therefore, at this time, that the potential gains from releasing genetically modified crops into the environment have been conclusively demonstrated, in order to sufficiently outweigh the known benefits of sticking with our GM-free marketing advantage.

I, personally, am disappointed not to be voting with my Labour colleagues today. It is not common, as everyone knows, for Labour and the Progressives to take different positions in Parliament. Since the last election, only a small number of issues out of the hundreds that we consider every month have resulted in our adoption of different positions. Tertiary fee increases and poker-machine numbers come to mind, but we totally reject the bumper-sticker politics that say “Keep New Zealand GE-free”. There is a high degree of simplistic sloganeering about such proclamations, and I stand 100 percent with the coalition Government as a whole in favour of science, in favour of rationality, and in favour of an evidence-based future for New Zealand’s economy.

The Progressives are pro-science, so we support the provisions in this legislation that streamline laboratory research. We agree with the rational, evidence-based approach to this issue. Like our partner in Government, the Labour Party, we are also pro - economic development and pro - high-quality jobs. It is just that at this time we are very concerned that some of New Zealand’s exporters, who rely so heavily upon our clean, green image, are given protection from any negative perceptions by overseas consumers in rich economies. We fear that such perceptions will arise the moment overseas news reports start stating that New Zealand is a GM food producer. We are dealing with overseas consumers’ fears. Perhaps some of them are irrational; nevertheless, in business the consumer is pretty important.

The Progressives have carefully evaluated the experience of GM food - producing countries around the world, and considered the views of New Zealand’s food producers. While some exporters are benefiting in real terms from promoting GE-free food, we have not been convinced that significant numbers of New Zealand primary producers are losing market share because they cannot use GM technology in the paddock. We respect Fonterra and Wrightson, but we also respect Zespri, the Sanitarium Health Food Co., ENZA, and Heinz-Wattie, among many others.

Todd Muller of Zespri, New Zealand’s largest horticultural exporter, has said that Zespri’s preference is for New Zealand to remain a GM-free food producer—at least until the uncertainties of GM technology are resolved and consumer safety concerns are answered. Kim Stirling of Sanitarium has written: “We propose that the bill be amended to delay the release of any GMO food crop for at least 5 years, to allow for the demand in productivity impacts of any release to be more clearly determined. New Zealand, as an island, is in a unique position to benefit from the demand shift toward GM-free produce, as we do not have the cross-pollination difficulties of other countries. Yet it seems we would throw away and tarnish our clean, green, environmental image on a highly speculative gamble that only the passage of time will serve to clarify.” ENZA’s chief executive, Michael Konig, wrote: “In summary, it is ENZA Food’s view, formed from regular ongoing market contact, that New Zealand does not have to be, and should not be, in any hurry to implement release of GM organisms into the environment.”

The Progressive party finds that the line of reasoning being advanced by these significant New Zealand companies is rational, reasonable, and pragmatic. They are not saying that things will not change in the future; I have no doubt, indeed, that they almost certainly will. The point is that, for now, we have concluded that the likely costs to New Zealand’s food export markets—as a result of the perception that we can no longer be guaranteed GM-free—are greater than the benefits of current GM food technology.

We will not be voting for this legislation in its final form, because a vote for conditional release is still a vote for release. As we oppose release, conditional or otherwise, of GM organisms that could possibly enter the food chain, we cannot support the core purpose of this legislation. In the Committee stage we sought amendments to the legislation that would have made it acceptable to us, but, as these amendments have not gained sufficient support, it remains in a state that is unacceptable to us.

We believe that there is a need to go back and look more closely at the trade-offs involved in this issue. The equation is simple. In our view, while gains from GM remain marginal and uncertain, our GM-free status is much more valuable to the New Zealand community.

Today is a day of shame for the Green Party. Within this very hour, the Green Party, having made no mention of planning to do this in its manifesto—not a mention—voted for the Supreme Court Bill. Without those Green votes, the Government could not have passed that legislation. The Green Party has been prepared to support the Government on an issue that it never told the public it would support. What the Green Party told the electorate prior to the 2002 election was this: “If the Government proceeds to lift the GE moratorium, we will bring the Government down.” That is what the Greens said, and many people voted for the Greens on the basis of that solemn pledge. A number of Green MPs are in this House only because they gathered those votes, and Metiria Turia is an example.

So, on the very day that the new organisms and other matters legislation is to be passed, what do the Greens do? Do they make it uncomfortable for the Government? Do they say: “Put that new organisms and other matters legislation through, and do not expect us to vote for any more of your legislation.”? The Greens held all the bargaining chips over the Supreme Court legislation. Why did they not use those bargaining chips to ensure this legislation did not progress? Why are they meekly allowing this legislation to pass and, at the same time, on the same day, providing the Labour Government with critical votes to pass legislation about something that they had not mentioned to anyone prior to the last election? The Greens simply have lost any semblance of credibility over this issue.

Following the royal commission, New Zealand First took the position that New Zealand needed to proceed with extreme caution. We are a country that is dependent upon the export of agricultural and grown goods. It is as risky to the future well-being of New Zealand to put our heads in the sand as it is to rush ahead in a gung-ho fashion with this relatively new technology, so New Zealand First supported the imposition of the moratorium. We believe that within its recommendations, the royal commission implied the need for such a moratorium in order for certain work to be carried out, so that a more robust set of regulations were in place prior to the first application for commercial release being submitted—and members must remember that the critical issue is commercial release, not research, which has been proceeding right through the era of this moratorium.

However, New Zealand First was very clear that prior to the lifting of the moratorium, we would reassess the situation. We have carried out such an assessment, and we have three serious concerns with the current situation. The first is around applications for commercial release of GE foodstuffs. I never thought that I would be agreeing almost point to point with Jim Anderton, but I did agree with his previous speech.

💬 Hon Jim Anderton: It’s a free country.

Yes, it is. We know that any such application is not likely within the next 2 years—that is the first thing. We know it is not likely; it is very highly unlikely. We also know that consumer behaviour is determined by perceptions, not necessarily by rigorous scrutiny of scientific evidence. It is also clear that if people, particularly in Europe and Japan, believe our food chain could be contaminated by GE product, that could have serious negative consequences for our economic well-being.

Considerable economic modelling suggests that there is a significant level of risk. Therefore, New Zealand First asks this question: if there is no chance of an application being submitted in the next 2 years, why do we not make it clear to overseas consumers of New Zealand foodstuffs that there is no risk of GE contamination whatsoever? New Zealand First is also unconvinced that the Environmental Risk Management Authority has developed a robust process to determine the risk to the economy of any such application. The Minister tells us that the methodology will be prepared by 30 October—in other words, “trust us, we know what we’re doing”. The authority has had more than 2 years, and it does not inspire confidence that such a methodology still has not been developed and has not been able to be scrutinised. Moreover, the Minister has already told this House that she will almost certainly use her call-in powers for the first applications relating to foodstuffs. Do members remember the Prime Minister’s statements about not wanting to be trapped like a possum in the headlights? The Minister seems to be saying: “Come on, car.” She seems to be saying she is quite happy to step into the middle of the road, in the dark.

New Zealand First is disappointed that its amendment to retain a moratorium on commercial release of GE foodstuffs for only another 2 years was lost. That was a pivotal point in our final decision whether to support this legislation. I can say here and now that New Zealand First is in the process of developing a member’s bill to re-impose a moratorium on applications for commercial release of GE foodstuffs. The legislation has already been drafted, it is going through its refinement process, and we hope to have it ready by the next ballot.

Our second concern is around the mandatory buffer zones recommended by the royal commission. It is true that the royal commission said that these should be on a case by case basis, but I am sure that what it meant was not: “We will wait until an application is received, and then we will consider what the zones should be.” The Government has belatedly funded some work on this issue through Lincoln University, but that will not be reported back until late 2004. It is too little, too late.

The issues around buffer zones are critical to the principal of preserving opportunities, which was highlighted by the royal commission. I say to Dr Paul Hutchison that we listened. It hardly inspires confidence to be told: “Oh, we’ll think about those matters when we get the applications.” I say to the Minister that that is not a satisfactory position to take, and it lends weight to New Zealand First’s proposition that applications for foodstuffs should not be allowed until there is a framework within which the best management decisions can be made.

The third matter in this legislation on which New Zealand First has serious concerns is the way in which local government has been completely sidelined. At best guess, what we are left with is a legal framework in which local authorities have responsibility for the environment within their defined boundaries, and in which they have to take into consideration economic and social issues. However, when it comes to GE, local authorities have been completely sidelined. It would appear that they can bring in anti-GE bylaws but if they ever impose those bylaws, they will inevitably be sued and would almost certainly lose, with a subsequent loss of ratepayers’ money in the process.

Local government has been put between a rock and a hard place. It will require a court case and a legal judgment to determine what local authorities’ powers actually are. It is totally unsatisfactory to set up legislation, the designers of which cannot say clearly what it states. It is simply just not good enough, by a long shot.

New Zealand First will not be supporting this legislation. It cannot. Those are not our only concerns about this legislation. Our other concerns revolve around the additional grounds for ministerial call-in. There are two aspects to our concern. The first relates to the ministerial call-in powers around cultural, ethical, and spiritual issues. Traditional Māori beliefs are, for example, that all objects, both animate and inanimate, have a life force, a mauri. As I have pointed out, such a philosophy—animism—is not dissimilar to the beliefs of Druidism, which is a set of religious beliefs from Western Europe and Britain around the time of the life of Christ. However, the concern we have is that although in our public thinking we have moved on from such a set of beliefs, while supporting the right of people to hold them in a private sense, this legislation allows for such thinking to re-enter the public domain, and we believe that that is a nonsense.

Our second concern about the Minister’s call-in powers is that people seem not to recognise that the call-in powers create a two-edged sword. Most people read the legislation as saying that if there were a particular risk, the Minister can have an even more rigorous process. Within a certain number of days the Minister can call something in and then put his or her own people on the Environmental Risk Management Authority’s panel, so that when the authority reports, it reports to the Minister, who will make the final decision. That sounds good—it is an extra risk-management process, but it is a two-edged sword. Let us suppose that an application came in that had the potential for economic gain, but the Minister considered that the Environmental Risk Management Authority might come down too heavily on the side of environmental risk. In that circumstance, the Minister could call in that application, and the final decision would then be in the Minister’s hands. Members should think about that.

I do not believe that National and ACT, which are voting for these bills, can possibly be comfortable with them in their present forms. They need to ask themselves what good and what harm the legislation would do. If they were to apply the risk management model to this legislation, they might come to some different conclusions from the ones they have.

To reiterate our position, New Zealand First has supported all the work that has been done—from the work done by the royal commission, through to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Amendment Bill, the setting of the moratorium, and the establishment of a conditional release, through to this legislation. However, our assessment of where we stand at this particular point in time is that we do not believe we have a rigorous enough regulatory process in place to be able to receive commercial applications for GE foodstuffs.

I speak on behalf of the ACT party. We support these bills, because we never supported the moratorium in the first place. The moratorium was just another example of political sitting on the fence. The Government shelved it—kicked it into touch, as my colleague Ken Shirley said—while it dealt with the Greens and got their support on things like the Supreme Court Bill. Now that the Greens have supported the passing of the Supreme Court legislation, we can go ahead and pass these bills. That is not the only thing. I go further than the Hon Brian Donnelly in criticising the Greens, and say that the Greens like doing those dodgy, sleazy deals with the Government. They traded with this Government on the transport legislation, which will be to the detriment of the country, too.

While I congratulate Labour members on passing this legislation and pushing it through, I ask them what the difference is between now and then, when the moratorium was first put in place. There is no difference in the science. The Greens demanded that commission of inquiry into genetic modification, and they got it. What happened? In July 2001 the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification handed its four-volume report to the Governor-General. I will look at the quality of the members of that commission. They included the Anglican bishop the Rt Rev. Richard Randerson, the reproductive biologist and south Auckland general practitioner Dr Jean Fleming, the Māori health expert Dr Jacqueline Allan, and it was chaired by the Rt Hon Sir Thomas Eichelbaum. They held 15 public meetings, 11 hui, 29 workshops, one youth forum, and listened to 107 presentations over 13 weeks. They also received more than 10,000 public submissions and conducted a public opinion survey of 1,153 New Zealanders.

I am one person who read that report when it came out. In essence, its advice was to go forward with care because “continuation of research is critical to New Zealand’s future”. The report recommended that field trials should proceed on a case by case basis. It is ridiculous to say that the Greens have principles on this issue. They have no principles, at all. They just cling to some irrational beliefs. Everywhere that this issue has been debated in the public forum—in Parliament, in front of the Environmental Risk Management Authority, out in public—the Greens’ case does not stack up. They and the anti-GM lobbyists cannot justify a ban on GM or GE. The anti-GM lobbyists rely on clever marketing, which uses the very tools of capitalism that they claim to despise. One could argue that the Green argument on this issue is what is known around the world as a “watermelon”—pink on the inside and green on the outside, because it is an argument against progress. No matter how many naked bodies are shown with four breasts being pumped for milk and no matter how many pink bras are displayed in Parliament, that still does not add up to fact-based evidence. They have falsely claimed that the Canadian economy is struggling because of GE. That is disputed. It is absolute rubbish. They have scaremongered about foods such as baby formula. It is the same with organic food. Organic food in the supermarket is half as expensive again as non-organic food, and if life is so sweet for people that all they have to worry about is whether their food is organic or genetically modified, life must be pretty good. There are people in this country who worry about getting food on the table, let alone whether it is genetically modified or organic.

At the third reading stage, I acknowledge the integrity of the chairperson of the New Zealand Life Sciences Network, Dr William Rolleston, who has consistently remained the calm voice of reason in the midst of hysterical and irrational debate, which has sometimes been very personally abusive—he has had a pie thrown in his face.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Before the break I was talking about the stand of the anti-GM lobbyists—the Green Party included—who cannot justify their ban on GM and GE. They talk about zero tolerance for GM in this country, but that is a nonsense for a start. There are already numerous GE ingredients in imported processed foods that are for sale in New Zealand. We have been eating and ingesting those for quite a while. There are soups, sauces, breads, margarines, confectionery, peanut butter, cordials and soft drinks, biscuits, and yoghurts. Some ingredients, such as yeast in an enzyme used in cheesemaking, have been used in this country for a decade. Most of us, as I said, have unknowingly ingested them and nobody has come to harm because of it. So GM is already here to stay. That is why it is obvious that people who oppose this legislation are opposed to progress.

I recall that I also acknowledged the chairperson of the Life Sciences Network, Dr William Rolleston. As I said, he has been the calm voice of reason in the midst of all this debate. I think I got to the point of saying that he has suffered things like having pies thrown in his face, and that is about the level of intelligence one would expect from people who oppose progress. We have seen the Wild Greens rip up crops, destroy the life’s work of scientists, and destroy the work of a PhD scientist. I was pleased to learn recently that that potato crop is back on track. I applaud the Minister for the Environment, Marian Hobbs, who said when talking about that crop that New Zealanders will not find GM crops out there growing everywhere this summer, next summer, or the summer after. She said that they might find a few paddocks somewhere with some conditions set around them, and that we do not want GM because we are buddying up to Monsanto in the US, but because we want it for us. She went on to talk about it paying for health and education, and to say that it would make New Zealand a more prosperous country. On its own, it will not get us back up into the top half of the OECD, and we cannot rely on this Government to do that, but the world is not going to end on 30 October.

I would like to talk about the issue of cultural and spiritual values that have been taken into account by some people in this legislation. It is hypocritical for people to oppose GM in foods but support it in medicines. Both food and medicines go into us, and, for both GM in foods and GM in medicines, at some stage the research has to leave the laboratory. I refer members to an excellent article in a magazine I have, which is written by a very good journalist who unfortunately is no longer in journalism. This journalist did a story on a whānau in the Bay of Plenty whose members had almost been wiped out by stomach cancer. An excellent scientist in Dunedin discovered they had a stomach gene that made them prone to stomach cancer, and that genetic modification could save those people’s lives. That is what we are looking at, but for genetic modification to save people’s lives, the experimental matter has to leave the laboratory and go into field trials. In medicine these are called clinical trials—[Interruption] Well, if members support that, they have to support clinical trials or field trials with food, too. They have to be consistent. We know why some members are not consistent. They would not get one vote if they opposed trials to help people suffering from multiple sclerosis, diabetes, or stomach cancer. If members opposed the access of those people to field trials and clinical trials of genetically modified organisms, they would not get one iota of support. They should be consistent and support GE or GM in food research, too.

This last debate on this legislation is like the final act of an inexorably unfolding Greek tragedy. The protagonists push ahead blindly on their predestined paths, deaf to the cries of the chorus and to forebodings about the consequences that could follow. The audience can only watch and warn, having done everything possible to wake the characters from their sleep—to jolt them into awareness of the destiny awaiting them—and to no avail. The audience is angry, because it is their future, their children, and their economy, health and environment that are being put at risk.

As I keep saying, this is the bill that makes the lifting of the moratorium operational. Without it, we would not need a moratorium. There would be no release, because the Government now knows that no GE organism could meet the minimum standards for release in the Act as it stands. The warnings have continued and amplified ever since the curtain went up. The evidence has accumulated that the risks are real.

Since the royal commission ended, there has been no good news for GE. The Greek chorus includes scientists, who warn that the process of genetic engineering is random and uncontrolled, and that the organisms that result are likely to be unstable and certainly unpredictable. We know from laboratory work that they are capable of producing new toxins and new allergens. We know from the UK’s 3-year field trials that they can have damaging effects on wildlife. We know from the few tests done on soil that the bacillus thuringiensis toxin remains in the soil for many months after plants are dead. We know that we need far more work on soil, as the royal commission itself said, before we will know what we are doing. We know that the glyphosphate herbicide, without which herbicide-resistant crops will not grow, has health risks and exposes crops to a much greater risk of fusarium mould. But this Government has not listened to independent scientists—only to those who work for industry.

There are economists in the Greek chorus, too. They are more recently arrived than the scientists, but come with a warning we should heed. We have the Business and Economic Research Ltd report that states clearly that reduction in market demand for our agricultural exports because of market resistance to GE will have a much greater impact on the New Zealand economy as a whole than any productivity increase that might be postulated for GE crops. A really huge productivity increase is needed to outweigh a small reduction in market demand through consumer resistance, yet we know that consumer resistance is real, and that productivity gains are still hypothetical. We have the University of Otago Trust and Country Image report that warns that the prospect of genetically modified farm animals producing milk or meat for food, and the feeding of such animals on genetically modified pasture plants, provokes an almost universal, highly negative reaction. Those were the words of the report, but the Government is not listening to economists. Treasury even changed the conclusions of the Business and Economic Research Ltd and Lincoln reports to fit its story.

Another group to emerge from the audience is the media. Over recent weeks, the New Zealand Herald, the Dominion Post, and the Sunday Star-Times have editorialised that we should hold off on the release of GE. It is just too soon to be sure of its effects. The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act is supposed to be about risk management. That is a dangerous approach to take when the risks we are supposed to be managing cannot be known and are unpredictable.

But if we are to become involved in risk management, we should listen to those who specialise in it and whose money is on the line if they get it wrong. The insurance industry has popped its head up in the chorus and said that it will not insure against the risks of GE, because it is not possible to do the actuarial calculations. It is up there, the industry says, with severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), terrorism, and nuclear mishaps. The potential consequences are so large, and the probability of their occurring so impossible to calculate, that there is no way of setting a realistic premium. So it will not insure, at all.

Surrounding those expert voices in the chorus are the people of New Zealand. They have been telling the Government for years that they do not want GE organisms released outside a contained laboratory. That is not a public reaction like yesterday’s “flash in the pan” on the Supreme Court Bill, which was whipped up by a last-minute campaign that could not even get a respectable number of signatures on a petition, and which had to resort to misinformation from a radio station to make the public angry. That storm will be gone as quickly as it arose, but on genetic engineering, the public has been committed and vocal for years—and increasingly well-informed.

They were committed 4 years ago, when 92,000 of them signed my petition for an inquiry and a moratorium. They were still committed 3 years ago, when 11,000 of them made personal written submissions to the royal commission, of which 92 percent opposed release outside the laboratory, and which was simply ignored. They were still committed in September 2001, when some 10,000 people marched in the streets of Auckland in the rain. Again, in November 2002, a similar march in Auckland showed that people had not changed their minds.

Last weekend at least 15,000—some say 25,000—people marched in Auckland again, as well as thousands in four other cities, determined that the blind and deaf players in the tragedy should hear their voices. That was possibly the largest-ever march in New Zealand’s history. I am aware of none larger, even in the days of Vietnam, the nuclear issue, or the Springbok tour. Queen Street was full from Customs Street to Myers Park, and still they came. They came with enormous creativity and hope that even at this stage the Government would listen. They came with banners, with costumes, with children, and with animals; they came to celebrate all that they hold dear, and to plead with this Government not to put it at risk.

Māori are particularly aghast at the process of genetic engineering, which is disrespectful of life, of whakapapa, and of the living things to which we are all related. This legislation throws Māori a crumb by legislating for what already exists. Ngā Kaihautu Tikanga Taiao, the advisory committee to the Environmental Risk Management Authority, has no decision-making power, is not appointed on the nominations of Māori, and cannot even elect its own chair. At one stage the committee favoured making at least those two small changes, but in the end it was not supported by Government members.

The tragedy grinds on, impervious to the growing sense of the awful destiny that could be waiting for us. There were many opportunities for the Government to listen and make changes without losing face. Amendments have been moved to extend the moratorium for 5 years, to strengthen the precautionary principle in the Act, to exempt food from the moratorium, to continue the cautious approach to living vaccines that might live in the soil, and to extend strict liability to cover cases where the law is not broken but the organism turns out to be dangerous. The Government, in its arrogance, has rejected them all. The only amendment of substance that the Government accepted was my proposal to require the Environmental Risk Management Authority to consider the economic costs as well as the benefits.

It was interesting to see the Progressives breaking ranks with their Labour coalition partner in voting to extend the moratorium. It is significant that Labour cannot get the support of its coalition partner on this issue, and I commend the Progressive members for taking a stand, although it was most disappointing that they chose not to speak on any stage of the legislation—not even to alert us to the existence of their amendments.

What is most interesting in voting on this legislation is the grand coalition. It should be a warning to Labour on how far it has moved that its position is now so close to that of National and ACT, and so far from that of the Greens and its own coalition partner. I have news for Labour—the big objective is to get GE off the political and electoral agenda. The game is to pass all decisions to the Environmental Risk Management Authority—an unelected quasi-judicial expert committee—so that when things go wrong, the Government will not be to blame. It will not succeed. Labour will be held accountable by the people for any harm that comes from the release of GE.

In the meantime, I pay tribute to all the people who have raised public awareness, and done everything they can to alert the Government to the risks it is taking. I want to thank everyone who has marched, made submissions, visited his or her MP, written letters and postcards, and voted on the www.take5.net.nz website, and on the numerous other petitions that are circulating. I thank Greenpeace, GE-Free New Zealand, the Sustainability Council, Friends of the Earth, Mothers Against Genetic Engineering, PureFoods New Zealand, Zespri, ENZA, Sanitarium, church groups, organic farmers, and all those who made submissions on the legislation opposing the release of GE. We have a lot to celebrate—we have made GE a front-page issue; we have delayed release into the environment and into the New Zealand food chain, to the point where much more information is available, and the mood of the Environmental Risk Management Authority is more cautious. I do not believe that it will ever allow the release of canola after the overseas experience of pollen-spread.

This legislation is not the end. There is a strong public movement that will not go away. We will oppose every release into the environment, while welcoming all that biotechnology can do for us in a contained lab. We will continue to tell stories from overseas. We will continue to be a watchdog on the Environmental Risk Management Authority. We will continue to challenge the Government. We will fight in Parliament, in the fields, and on the streets, until people stop messing with the fundamental processes of life itself.

It is with pleasure that I rise to support the third reading of this legislation on behalf of United Future. It simply puts in place the legislative and environmental framework needed to deal safely and efficiently with the reality of genetic technology. GE is here to stay. Denying the reality of GE is to forgo all its potential benefits while we bury our heads in the sand and let it sneak up on us, incrementally, anyway. I have spent the last 3 weeks in Europe, where, particularly during the last week, I met with various people in the UK and Holland to discuss the issue of GE and GMOs in Europe. Many of them were envious of our regulatory regime. This legislation completes the process and gives us one of the most secure regulatory processes of any country in the world. A number of people commented with envy that we could analyse applications on the basis of economic considerations, and they were certainly envious of the Minister’s call-in powers, which would give even more flexibility in handling cases on a case by case basis.

Many good arguments have been made here, and many good comments made in the debate. I want to focus on a couple that really struck me from my time in Europe. Many here in New Zealand are quick to suggest that New Zealand could do well by selling its product as GE free, and by cashing in on being one of the few GE-free nations in the world. First of all, we have to ask ourselves whether we can promote ourselves as GE free. While there is no certainty about any contamination of GE sweetcorn in the 2000 “corngate” affair, there is definitely evidence of contamination last year in sweetcorn grown here in New Zealand. So no one can, with any integrity, stand and declare New Zealand to be GE free. It amazes me that those who are so opposed to the lifting of the moratorium, because of all the supposed environmental risks of releasing GMOs into the environment, are prepared to overlook the fact that we have already had some of it growing. If it is so bad, it must have already spread beyond containment in this country.

If we have survived this, in terms of any effects to our markets, then surely we can also survive any potential consequences of approved releases on a case by case basis, where all care will be taken to avoid contamination of neighbouring crops. The growing of potatoes or onions—if these are the first applications to be approved, perhaps later in 2004 or 2005—is, in reality, unlikely to create the kind of economic damage the doomsayers are predicting. Where is the integrity of those who are running around with their clothes off, demanding New Zealand remain GE free, when we all know that it has not been GE free and therefore, technically, can never be again? [Interruption] I agree with the member.

Over the last few weeks I have had many discussions with credible people in the UK and the Netherlands, and no one gave me the slightest impression of believing that opposition to the development of GMOs was likely to be successful in Europe. It was not considered feasible, nor desirable. The people currently opposed—and I am glad to say they did have their clothes on—are likely to slow the introduction of GMOs in Europe, but when the reason for opposition is analysed, it has more to do with general mistrust of politicians and scientists, based on some recent experience with bovine spongiform encephalopathy and mad-cow disease, and even currently with the issues of the Iraq war. This will change in time, as things often do.

It is likely that, gradually, the majority of consumers will accept the facts about the technology and get on with life, as we have done with past controversies and current ones. There is controversy around cellphones, but we do not stop using them. There is controversy around microwaves—and in some homes in Europe people still refuse to use them—but by and large they are an accepted technology. Results of the farm-scale study—which involves the study, over 4 years, of four varieties of herbicide-resistant GM crops—will be released this week in England, and it will be of interest to all of us who are following the GE debate. The results are being kept under wraps very tightly, and no one with any knowledge of what the report contains is revealing anything. I tried my hardest to find out information, but was unable to.

Those who do have knowledge, though, are pouring scorn on claims, reported in The Guardian and repeated by the anti-GE lobby, that leaks of information in the report indicated a negative result in the study. The speaker before me, who claimed that the report states that there were negative effects, did exactly what many of the opponents of GE are doing—acting without any integrity whatsoever—and tried to snatch a few headlines in the paper by saying that a report will be negative when in fact it has not yet been released. I find that to be reprehensible. Many people only see the first headline; they do not see the rest of the story and the facts that follow it. I am sure that those without much concern for the truth and the facts of the whole report in context will find something negative taken out of context to shout from the rooftops or spread on the Internet to continue the misinformation campaign. We should all wait until we can read the report for ourselves, and know the facts.

What I did hear from the National Farmers Union executives I met with, just last week, was that the anecdotal reports from farmers who have been involved over the 4-year period of the trials were that their overall experience with the crops has been generally good.

A lot has been said about the refusal of the UK supermarkets to stock GE food because of the public’s opposition to GE food. The question we need to ask is whether UK and European supermarkets will be able to keep GE produce off the shelves indefinitely. While it has been easy for the major supermarket chains to respond to consumer concern over GE products, by refusing to put them on the shelves, it is my opinion that this will become increasingly more difficult to do. The requirement for labelling of any food item that has more than 0.9 percent GM content makes life problematic for the retailers now in the European Union. The requirement to label will force suppliers to either identify the source of all their ingredients with absolute certainty, or engage in the expensive process of testing everything.

The first option is problematic, as the percentage of GM crops increases worldwide. The possibility of some low levels of contamination occurring in neighbouring crops increases with it. The recent revelations concerning the number of Brazilian farmers who had ignored their country’s ban on GM organisms and purchased GE soy seeds from neighbouring Argentina is a case in point of how difficult it is becoming for anyone to be absolutely certain about food being completely GE free.

In November the European Commission will have to vote upon whether it approves some releases of commercially grown crops in the European Union, and any release in any one country that is approved will apply to the whole European Union. Many I spoke to believe that that vote will proceed, and that the pseudo moratorium that exists in the European Union communities will no longer be in force.

Supermarket chain stores that value their integrity may be rather reluctant to risk the consumer backlash that would occur if they labelled products as 100 percent GE free that then may turn out to have low levels of contamination. Instead, I think there will be a growing tendency to take a safe and more pragmatic approach, and attach labels that state “This product may contain GM at less than 0.9 percent.” Consumers who want greater certainty than that may find it more and more difficult to source their desire for guaranteed GE-free products. They will find them costing considerably more, not just because of the savings made by growers, by the efficiencies gained by GM organisms that could reduce the cost of GM produce, but also because of the increased cost that will be passed on to the consumer, the cost of tracking the source of products, and the testing of the products, as I stated earlier.

There may be a positive spin-off for some conventional farmers and organic farmers, for a time, as people are willing to pay higher prices for what is guaranteed to be GE-free food. But it is likely that without any forthcoming proof of any dangers to health from consuming GM organisms, the percentage of consumers who will pay more will decrease. After at least 7 years of consumption of GM organisms by many millions in the US, Canada, and Argentina, there is still no evidence of any negative health effects. That does not mean that there are none or that there may not be in the future, but there is no reliable evidence of any negative side effects yet, so far, and none on the horizon, either.

The question is, for how long will consumers refuse products when their choices may cost them more at the cash register. We know that smoking is harmful, but 20 percent of New Zealanders continue to smoke, and Europeans seem to do so at an even higher percentage. We have been told of the negative effects of eating too much fast food, yet we continue to consume it. It is not credible to suggest that, in the absence of any proof of negative consequences, European consumers will boycott New Zealand agriculture products in the long term. Even in the short term, potential consequences of any economic consequences seem remote, in my opinion.

I wish to support the changes in clarification of the Environmental Risk Management Authority processes that make this bill more acceptable to many people.

I was nearly caught off guard there after that brilliant contribution by the member from Hamilton East—particularly the length and breadth of it just about caught me out! Tonight we will talk about the legislation at some stage, but I start by drawing the analogy I did when I spoke in the Committee stage, about what happens when new technology is developed and people do not understand it, and they are motivated more by fear, than an understanding of the science. I draw the analogy of Henry Ford when he introduced his first mass-production assembly line back in his home country and started producing the model T car. The people of the area rose up and belted on the side of his factory with sticks, went to the media, and protested up and down the country—I am not sure whether they were clothed or unclothed, but they protested.

Their argument was that the contraption that he was going to mass-produce would rattle, frighten the horses, and it would kill thousands of people. Do members know what? The protesters were absolutely right. His rattling contraption did frighten the horses, and it did kill thousands of people. Guess what? Not one member of the Green Party arrives in Parliament today on a horse or with a horse and cart. On a skateboard, yes, but not a horse and cart. The analogy was totally confirmed for me when I went to visit my old mum in hospital, and came out too late to get a meal and decided to go through the drive-through of KFC, which is multinational. [Interruption] Potentially it is genetically engineered food; I am not sure.

💬 Simon Power: It’s horrible.

It is a dreadful place. My colleague says it is a horrible place, and he is right. It is dreadful food, it is likely to kill someone, it is unhealthy. I had better be careful—I do not want to denigrate them too much. Of course, we will go in and enjoy it in great quantities. But the thing that really struck me was, as I pulled into there in a great rush, as one does, and joined the queue, that the Japanese import in front of me that was belching clouds of smoke had on the bumper sticker “Vote Green and save New Zealand from GE”. It was belching out smoke—I had to turn the fan off because we were blasting it all into our car—and it had: “Vote Green and save New Zealand from GE”.

Here we go. We have a multinational here in New Zealand, a car that is so environmentally hazardous that it should not be on the road—it probably will not be when the new regulations come in—and there is no guarantee, at all, that the food that we would consume from that outlet is in any way healthy. Potentially, it is genetically modified, as well. I would not know about that. We enjoyed a great feed of KFC chicken and went home happy to have KFC in New Plymouth.

But the analogy is absolute, when we look at that. Clearly, we have to take note of the findings of the royal commission, which were: to proceed with caution. Clearly, there are some concerns, and there will be some hazards. [Interruption] My colleagues here are trying to draw me into the issue of old “Fergies”—I will get there in the finish. The reality is, clearly there are some risks. But if we do not base on good science, good research, the analysis of whether to proceed, then what do we base it on? On what basis can we proceed with anything? If we do not allow properly controlled research to take place, both in the field and in the laboratory, then how will we ever know? Will we wait until somebody else finds what we probably already are halfway down the road to discovering with regard to some of the major breakthroughs that I predict will take place in medicine? Will we wait for somebody else to discover that, and lose all the benefits of that? Will we, or will we proceed with caution? The National Party is of the view that after a long period of investigation, after a long period of consultation, after the work has been done by the royal commission, and after the work has been done in making sure that the Environmental Risk Management Authority requirements are robust and the research is robust, then we must proceed with caution.

My colleagues keep tempting me to raise the issue of the old “Fergie”. Well, the Ferguson tractor is a major piece of technological advancement. The Ferguson system designed a machine that allowed the plough, the tractor, and the cultivator, and all the other implements that fit on to it, to be one device. When we moved from the horse-drawn implement to a mechanical device that was all one—and much more manoeuvrable—that was the Ferguson tractor. It is an offensive piece of machinery of course; it is a very disorderly piece of machinery, and one gets charged with an offence if one drives it! But if one is protesting against GE, and strips naked and lies down on the front lawn of Parliament, that is not disorderly—no charges are laid!

So I understand from this that the Ferguson tractor itself is disorderly. It is that old Ferguson tractor that is disorderly. That has to be clear to most people. It is a horrible thing to have a Ferguson tractor, an iconic piece of agricultural equipment, with a New Zealand flag flying from it, on the steps of Parliament. That is a heinous crime and a morally reprehensible thing to do. There is no question about that. But backing up to the front gates of Premier House with a truckload of dirt and tipping that in front of the gates of Premier House, so that the whole of the Labour caucus and Cabinet cannot get out, is fine. There is nothing wrong with that.

💬 Simon Power: That’s insightful!

That is leadership! But they should have dropped off 10 truckloads of dirt and blocked it for a couple of months. That would have been useful, as well as insightful and showing leadership. That is not a crime. Of course, they would not have a “Fergie” tractor to climb over it, so they would be trapped there for a long time. That would have been useful and a great thing.

Clearly, we have a double standard in terms of what is important and what is not. Clearly, we have a double standard in terms of the way this Government responds to different protests. Clearly, we have a double standard where farmers are not welcome in Parliament, and their protest is described as “foolish and stupid”, but anything goes when it comes to putting up an argument against GE, even when the Government is supporting the issue, because those who are opposed just happen to be the group that supports the Government with its vote on most things—like changing major constitutional issues to do with this country’s access to the Privy Council. That is the difference; that is the double standard, and I am absolutely opposed to that.

We must proceed with this legislation but with caution: with science-based and carefully analysed research about where to go. Let us look at some of the opportunities that may arise from this. Certainly there will be opportunities in increased production. We are not sure how great they will be. We are not sure whether they will be commercially viable, but we will never know, unless the research is done. We will never know, unless we are leaders instead of followers in some of this. We will never know, unless we allow some of that carefully considered research to take place.

We do not know what may come out, in a medical sense. New Zealand has been a leader in this area. We do not know what may come out of that. An example was drawn earlier about using pig insulin versus some of the more synthetic or more modified approaches that we have now. What we do know is that forms of genetic engineering and genetic modification have been going on for thousands of years. Today we are just moving to the next wave of that technology—carefully. We will be doing it carefully and cautiously and with tight regulations and careful consideration.

Let me explain how one can get caught out politically. The Prime Minister said we would have “zero tolerance” for genetic engineering in this country. Then we found out that some corn that had been imported may or may not have been contaminated. So we went through this extensive testing process, and, of course, all the scientists would have been able to tell her straight out, and probably did, that we can never guarantee zero tolerance; that there will always be a tolerance level. The only way we can guarantee zero tolerance is to test every single corn seed and thereby destroy every single corn seed. So there is no way of guaranteeing zero tolerance. There was an example of the Prime Minister being caught out by not studying science and listening to scientists. We need some consistency in this whole debate.

This is good legislation. New Zealand will keep its edge as a leading developer of medical and agricultural research that is vital to New Zealand’s economic future. I am pleased to support it.

I thank the previous speaker, who has provided me with ample rebuttal material!

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: But you agree with us.

Yes, I know. Wonders will never cease! As the two preceding speakers for the Opposition side of the House have indicated, the National Party supports the passage of this legislation and will be supporting the third reading. When speaking on this legislation on a number of occasions, I have said that the issue it addresses has been very difficult for many members of the New Zealand public and for many members in this House. I guess I could say many of us have not found this legislation to be particularly digestible, in the sense of being able immediately to fall into a position of overriding support for it. For that reason, I think that members on all sides acknowledge that this issue has raised emotions and views to very high levels. Frankly, the issue is of such significance that it has spanned across the political divide in a way that is quite unusual. Not only do most of the parties in the House support the passage of the legislation in some shape or form—though it is always difficult to know with New Zealand First; we are never quite sure exactly where it sits on an issue, but, no doubt, it will come around in the end—but also, as I have said previously in the debate on this legislation, colleagues of mine, friends of mine whom I could only describe as being pretty right wing and who consider the ACT party to be a bit soft, have raised with me issues relating to GE and food labelling. So this issue does span across the traditional economic spectrum of political recognition, in terms of where a party sits on those issues.

This has not been legislation that I have been comfortable with, in the sense of how it is drafted—not at all. I have raised that on a number of occasions in the Education and Science Committee process. Some of the drafting is appalling, so I think problems are just waiting to arise in respect of the interpretation of different clauses. During the remainder of my contribution I want to highlight the three matters I have raised on a number of occasions during the course of the debate on this legislation that I think the courts will be dealing with for quite some time.

The first issue relates to the pecuniary penalties provisions, and, in particular, to new section 124B(3) of Part 7A, inserted by clause 48. The burden of proof for the applicant, in the event of a breach of the Act, is set at a very high standard—a standard that is quite different from the standard that was originally envisaged in the legislation as introduced. As I have said before, it was envisaged that the burden would be this: the court would not make a penalty order if it was satisfied that the person involved in the conditional release did not know, and could not reasonably have known, of the breach. That was changed, and the burden has increased substantially. Subsection (3) now states that the court must not make the order if the person satisfies the court that he or she did not know of the breach, and could not reasonably have known of the breach. That is a higher standard than ordinarily would be the case in criminal matters, and in civil matters as well.

We noted in the select committee that the officials said there was no good reason, in respect of GE, as to why liability or pecuniary penalties, or, in fact, burdens should be treated any differently in this case than in any other legal scenario. That advice was ignored by the majority of the select committee, and it pressed ahead, lifting that burden in a way that is inconsistent with that basic position.

The second issue, which I raised during the Committee stage and continue to have concerns about, relates to the Minister’s call-in powers. That provision does worry me substantially. As I have said previously, the fact that the Minister may direct that an application be called in if the application will have significant cultural, economic, environmental, ethical, health, international, or spiritual effects will only benefit one group in New Zealand, and that is the lawyers. The lawyers will have a field day with this stuff, trying to work out what a cultural, an environmental, or a spiritual effect is, and I can tell members that there will be many, many more Mercedes-Benzes parked outside district law societies’ annual meetings when lawyers have finished interpreting this mess. That is the best and kindest way I can describe drafting that attaches such importance to innocuous and bizarre terms such as “spiritual and cultural effects”. There is nothing certain in those provisions, and the one obligation of this Parliament is to provide clarity and certainty in the law. What we will see from that particular clause is more judicial activism—more lawmaking by judges who are not interpreting clear, clean law, but are making law—and, by what happened earlier today in this House, most of those judges will have been appointed by Margaret Wilson. I take no comfort from that, at all—not for one moment. I will be watching the effect and the interpretation of those provisions very carefully, indeed.

The last of the three points that I want to raise relates to the effect of this legislation and its interpretation on local government. I have raised that issue many times during the course of the debate on this legislation. This legislation is extremely unclear with regard to local government’s ability to effect GE-free areas within territorial authority boundaries, and does nothing to clarify that issue. That issue was raised by members of this House during the select committee process. We told officials that the advice they gave us on that point was not good enough, that the legislation was not clear enough, and that units of local government would be left in an uncertain position for the future when declaring, or wishing to consider, GE-free areas within their own territorial boundaries. The majority of the Government members on the select committee pressed ahead, on the basis that they were not concerned about what that meant for local government or about the way in which this legislation would be interpreted by local government. Others on the committee signalled that they were unhappy with that lack of clarity and certainty in the legislation, and I do so again now.

Let me just forecast, if I may, one thing. The uncertainty in the relationship between this legislation and local government will cause havoc. There will be districts and territorial authorities that wish to consider the issue of GE-free districts within their boundaries. This legislation does not clarify that issue. That will end up costing ratepayers and taxpayers money when those issues have to go to the High Court, the Court of Appeal, or, God forbid, to Margaret Wilson’s Supreme Court, to have the matter determined. It is just not good enough to put law through this House that is so uncertain and unclear that it will end up creating another wave of judicial activism. I see the chairman of the select committee nodding at me, and I am not sure whether that is reassuring.

But I think the main point here is that this legislation has been poorly put together. Whilst members on the Opposition side of the House agree with the principles in it, will be supporting it, and have done so throughout the process, the inability of this Parliament and of Government members on the select committee to rectify and tidy up the issues raised during the select committee process and the Committee stage will, unfortunately, mean that this debate is far from over.

Notwithstanding the concerns raised by the member who has just resumed his seat, I would like to say that this is good legislation. We are proceeding with caution in the management of new organisms, while preserving opportunities. That is a responsible approach, I would have thought. I support the legislation.