Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) : I move, That the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Education and Science Committee for consideration, with an instruction to the committee to present its final report on or before 5 September 2003, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during questions for oral answer, and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Order 193 and Standing Order 196(1)(b) and (c).

I thank United Future and New Zealand First for their support for the first reading of this bill. In fact, I live in hope of wider support for this bill and thus for the growing biotechnology industry in New Zealand. I also acknowledge the work done by officials and researchers in a number of ministries to meet the tight deadlines for a number of reports. This bill forms a key part of the Government’s response to the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification. Until 29 October this year, a statutory restricted period, a moratorium, is in place, whereby applications to release genetically modified (GM) organisms cannot be accepted by the Environmental Risk Management Authority. The restricted period has allowed time for important aspects of the Government response to the royal commission to be put in place. These have included amending the legislation, which is what members have before them now, to include a new form of release, namely conditional release; reviewing the current liability regime for dealing with issues surrounding genetically modified organisms—this has also been done and is part of this bill—and establishing Toi te Taiao, the Bioethics Council. I am pleased to say that this too has happened. It also includes developing a biotechnology strategy, and this strategy has been released.

Other aspects of the Government response include continuing and establishing programmes addressing areas of social, economic, ethical, environmental, and agricultural research, as identified by the royal commission. Funding in this area has been increased. This research is specific to New Zealand’s priority needs, but it will build on the wide body of knowledge internationally in this area. For example, the Institute of Environmental Science and Research has been funded to carry out research into understanding horizontal gene transfer in order to predict any ecological consequences from genetically modified organisms in New Zealand. In addition, Lincoln and Otago universities are investigating key socio-economic impacts of biotechnology and the underlying causal factors.

Regarding the analysis of the economic impacts of releasing genetically modified organisms, this completed economic research concludes that the most likely economic impact from the careful and considered release of GM organisms would be a small increase in gross domestic product over 10 years, compared with a small decrease from forgoing releases of GM organisms. The research reinforces the Government’s strategic approach of proceeding cautiously with genetic modification while preserving opportunities. We have also considered exploring the potential for the coexistence of various forms of genetically modified, conventional, and organic agriculture. The Government has recently accepted that coexistence is possible between genetically modified and non-genetically modified agriculture based on a rigorous regulatory regime, a case by case approach, and consideration of the whole of the production chain. Work continues on the practical aspects of making coexistence work. Work is also under way on a range of issues related to intellectual property. This work, which is under way at the moment, forms part of the review of the Patents Act and the Plant Variety Rights Act. Lastly, a discussion document on the development of a voluntary labelling system for GE-free products is now available for public comment.

This bill includes significant changes to the way in which the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act operates and its relationship to other Acts. The bill has two main themes: firstly, to provide a practical framework for proceeding with caution in the management of new organisms, including GM organisms, while preserving opportunities; and, secondly, to improve the overall effectiveness of the operation of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. To enable this to proceed with caution while preserving opportunities, a new category for approval of new organisms, which is called “conditional release”, has been developed. A range of regulatory measures is provided in the bill to allow for this category of approval. This is supported by enforcement arrangements and an enhanced liability regime to ensure compliance. Some new organisms will be suitable for conditional release.

In making its decision to approve a conditional release, the Environmental Risk Management Authority must decide whether, assuming conditions are operative, a minimum standards test can be met. The minimum standards relate to significant effects of an organism on people and the environment. The authority will need to consider whether the organism could be recovered or eradicated, if, for example, conditions were breached. The authority will be able to consider a range of conditions and select the most appropriate on a case by case basis. For example, conditions might include monitoring the impact of an organism on the environment, or allowing only sterile male pine trees, or stipulating that certain management practices must be followed. To support conditional release and encourage compliance, the bill contains provisions for an enhanced liability regime. These are a statutory, strict civil liability rule and civil penalties regime for breaches of certain provisions relating to new organisms. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has been designated as the agency responsible for all enforcement activity for new organisms.

The second theme of this bill is to improve the overall efficiency of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. This is the result of both the royal commission’s recommendations and practical experience with the Act. To streamline processes in the Act and thus reduce compliance costs, a fast-track process is proposed for low-risk organisms used in both human and animal medicines, and for use in emergencies. In addition, low-risk genetically modified organism imports will be approved on a similar basis as low-risk developments. What this means is that low-risk imports will be able to be assessed rapidly and decided on by the institutional biological safety committees, under delegation from the Environmental Risk Management Authority.

Other efficiencies relate to clarifying and updating processes. Provisions are made in the bill to allow the use of the appropriate taxonomic terms, such as genus, and for large-scale permutation of micro-organisms to be treated in the same way as any other application for developmental approval. There will also be more appropriate and realistic time lines for both reporting decisions by the Environmental Risk Management Authority and seeking compliance with a compliance order. Further, because it is about new organisms, zoo and circus animals will be brought further under the hazardous substances and new organisms regime.

To improve knowledge of Treaty of Waitangi and tikanga Māori elements and decision making by the Environmental Risk Management Authority, provision is made to formalise the role of the authority’s Māori advisory committee, Nga Kaihautu Tikanga Taiao. Other provisions contained in this bill relate to anticipating future regulatory requirements by including them under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. These include certain developments using human cells and culture, requiring approval for regeneration of new organisms and tissue, and ensuring consistency in dealing with confidential information. Finally, my backstop ability to call in applications to the Environmental Risk Management Authority will be extended to cover significant cultural, spiritual, or ethical effects.

The provisions I have outlined represent complex and significant changes to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. There has been extensive public consultation, both during the development of this bill and during the work of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification. At select committee the public will again have an opportunity to help define the final shape of this legislation. In conclusion, the changes proposed in this bill will ensure that the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act is pitched at the right level to allow genetic modification developments to proceed cautiously, while preserving opportunities.

It is almost 2 years since the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification reported to the Government. It advised the Government to proceed with caution. The procedures laid out in this bill will help us do just that. We wish to take advantage of a new technology, but we wish to do that cautiously. This bill gives us the range of tools to do just that—to examine each new application for contained, conditional, or general release on a case by case basis. This bill also supplies the incentives for applicants to keep the conditions that may get set. The risk management approach taken in this bill complements and builds on that of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act and is appropriate for the management of new organisms.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition) : The National Opposition will be supporting this bill but, I must say, with some deep reservations. Our reservations are based particularly on the perception that this has the look of a deal done by Helen Clark. That means it is very hard to pin down just exactly what the intention is. For those members who are interested in recalling the history of this bill, the Greens asked for a royal commission on this matter. A royal commission was set up and carried out, at an expense of $6 million, and the Greens then decided that they would not accept the outcome. Subsequently, a moratorium was put in place. We cannot help thinking, as we look through the detail of the bill, that while it contains a number of useful provisions, the risk is that the measures in the bill are so restrictive that even when the moratorium expires, it will be virtually impossible for an organism to be released. We could end up with the classic kind of Clark outcome—taking a position that we agree with, that a science-based approach to genetic modification is appropriate for New Zealand and that it is important to the biological base of our economy that these technologies are available, but on the other hand putting in place a set of rules so restrictive that genetically modified organisms cannot happen, except at great expense, and the only people who can really afford that are the State-owned organisations that research in this area.

As I said, there are some useful provisions in this bill. We agree with the different grades of release, and the capacity of the technical committees to release minor genetically modified organisms represents a step forward. But there are two particular matters I want to draw the House’s attention to—firstly, the way that the bill deals with Māori views on genetic modification, because that is an important issue, and, secondly, the way the Greens are going to deal with this legislation and its impact on the Government. I see in the explanatory note that the legislation is intended to give greater weighting to Māori views. I will be interested to hear from the Government just what the problem was that this change is meant to solve. There have already been court cases regarding Māori views on genetic modification.

The Environmental Risk Management Authority has turned itself inside out, as did the royal commission, to hear Māori views on genetic modification. I have made the point in respect of other legislation that we need to be careful about giving too much weight to any particular spiritual view—particularly when the policy position is that progress on genetic modification, proceeding with caution, ought to have a scientific base to it. We know that the Māori views on this are not necessarily scientifically based, that some have quite extreme views about genetic modification and a good number have quite practical views about it. The way the bill deals with it is something of a cop-out. It sets up the new statutory committee, but that is all it does. I see the Minister smiling, because that was a deliberate play. The bill just sets it up. It gives no statutory definition or limit to the role of that committee, except to say that it must give advice to the Environmental Risk Management Authority. In that sense, it is a parliamentary cop-out. How those views are handled is intrinsic to any progress with genetic modification in New Zealand, and the Parliament with this legislation is doing two things at once. It is giving greater weight to Māori views, but no prescription as to the role they might play in any approval process.

I also note that clause 36 extends the Minister’s call-in powers by including a reference to spiritual matters. That is opening a Pandora’s box. This is now giving ministerial discretion to decide about the weightings of spiritual matters, alongside environmental and ethical matters. I do not believe that this Minister or any other Minister is any better qualified than anyone else to call in an application on the basis of its spiritual significance. I look forward to the Government explaining to us exactly what kind of spiritual significance it believes may warrant a ministerial call-in. What kind of thing could be so nationally significant on a spiritual basis? I say this as someone who has spiritual beliefs. I do not regard the Minister as competent at all to decide on their significance, particularly with regard to that kind of process. The Minister says she will never do it, so why is it in the bill, other than as some kind of tokenism?

That brings me to probably the most important implication of this bill, and that is the implications for the coalition Government. I remember the photos in the Christchurch Press of Rod Donald in his new suit, just before the election. He went out and bought his new suit, because that was the one he wanted to wear to his first Cabinet meeting. But, of course, after election night he found that Helen Clark had other plans for the new suit, and they were that Rod Donald should wear it while he languished in some kind of ill-defined cohabitation with the Government, rather than in a specific relationship. Peter Dunne was the man who got to wear his new suit into coalition arrangements with the Government.

I hear now that the Greens have some plans for the time after the expiry of the moratorium. They cannot be plans that the Government—and certainly not United Future—is too keen on at the moment. In the first place, this bill is going anywhere but to the select committee chaired by Jeanette Fitzsimons. So it is going off to the Education and Science Committee instead of the Local Government and Environment Committee. I wonder why that is. Is it because the Prime Minister cannot stand that woman—as she tells anyone who will listen? I think it is. I think that is why the bill is going to that committee. But the Greens have plans, and that is so particularly for the United Future party. I say to that party that it needs to consider this matter, particularly as it has already agreed on a shonky process for dealing with this legislation. United Future is in an arrangement with the Government, which is the arrangement the Greens want. The Greens are making it plain to anyone who listens that once the moratorium has expired, they expect to take their rightful place as the left-wing party in this Parliament, alongside the increasingly left-wing Government, in a proper coalition arrangement—particularly one that puts Rod Donald at the Cabinet table. Rod Donald is totally motivated by personal ambition; Jeanette Fitzsimons, I believe, is less motivated by personal ambition.

So we will see a process of Helen Clark changing partners. She wants to get rid of the United Future party, because the Greens want it got rid of and there is no particular point to its being in coalition with Labour because its members never deliver anything from that coalition except the Families Commission and expensive bureaucracy. The Greens will then get alongside the Government. I believe that is the best arrangement that reflects the views of this Parliament—the two left-wing parties together, and the United Future party, which actually is not left-wing, rightfully in the Opposition opposing the Government or, at the very least, in some arms-length arrangement that reflects the fact it does not agree with Labour on much at all but Peter Dunne would like it to look as if it did.

So this legislation is critical to the future make-up of the Government in this Parliament. The bill will be passed before the moratorium expires, with the Greens in opposition to the bill, no doubt. But the Greens are making it plain that once the moratorium expires, they will give up their principled position of opposition to genetic modification (GM), and work hard to dislodge United Future and get their own party in as the partner of the Government. We will support that, because we believe it reflects much better the direction that Labour is going in. The Greens will be much more comfortable with that direction than will United Future—except on this GM issue, of course, on which we share Labour’s view—and United Future will find that the increasing discomfort it feels will take it away from Government and much closer to Opposition where we believe it belongs.

LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) : It is with pleasure that I speak today to voice United Future’s support for the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill. This bill is the culmination of a process that began with the setting up—at the insistence of the Green Party—of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification. The royal commission considered 10,861 written submissions from the general public, and another 107 written submissions from organisations with “interested persons” status. The terms of reference were broad, the processes were inclusive, and the deliberations were thorough. The conclusions reached by the royal commission were, in United Future’s assessment, sensible, moderate, and well balanced. It concluded that New Zealand should keep its options open, and that it would be unwise for New Zealand to turn its back on the potential advantages offered by this rapidly growing field of scientific knowledge. We were to achieve that by proceeding with caution, and by minimising and managing risks. We were not to achieve that simply by going around and banning things on an ideological basis.

At the heart of the royal commission’s recommendations was a central theme of the desirability of preserving opportunities. Based on a solid, scientific foundation, the recommendations were aimed at enabling and encouraging the coexistence of all forms of agriculture. Each form of agriculture—conventional, organic, and genetically modified—was seen, rightly in my view, as having the potential to make a unique contribution to the overall benefit of New Zealand. The royal commission found that New Zealand’s basic regulatory framework and key institutions were already adequate for dealing with genetic modification (GM) in New Zealand. Most of its recommendations focused on enhancing this existing regulatory framework and institutions. It did not seek to throw everything out and start again, or to take drastic steps to bring the existing framework up to some new, much higher standard. That is what this bill is all about. It implements the sensible, moderate recommendations of the royal commission, so that we can be absolutely sure that our regulatory framework and institutions are as good as we can make them before the GM moratorium is lifted in October this year.

Surely then, having had the royal commission, having seen the royal commission’s moderate, well-balanced recommendations, and having seen those recommendations brought into this House as legislation, the Greens are now satisfied. Surely they can accept those measures are based on thorough consultation and sound science, and can agree to New Zealand moving forward—but with caution. Surely they will be happy to act as a watchdog to make sure the Government remains vigilant about the new technology and ensures that the regulatory framework keeps pace with any new developments. Sadly though, for the Greens as much as for anyone else, this is not the case. When the royal commission that the Greens instigated did not reach a conclusion that agreed with the ideological Green agenda, the Green Party refused to accept its recommendations and is still relentless in its opposition to allowing genetically modified organisms to be released in New Zealand, no matter how tightly regulated. Opponents of GM, like the Greens, will tell us that the reason for such implacable opposition is that the technology is new and untested, it does not do things in the same way that the random processes of nature would, and it could therefore wreck the environment and our economy for ever, and so on. However, they are overlooking one tiny flaw in their argument. Nothing in real life is certain; progress, by its very nature, is decentralised and open-ended. It moves in unpredictable ways. The most we can ever do is manage the risks, and that is what this bill is doing.

All technology is new at some time, and there is always a degree of uncertainty. I doubt whether any worthy scientists would ever say that something was 100 percent certain. They might say that it was 99.999 percent certain, but never 100 percent certain. It is this uncertainty, which always exists in reality, that the Greens movement has seized on. Its members are opposed to GM technology for ideological reasons, so they are urging us to meet an impossible standard before the technology can go any further. The same is true of other anti-GM advocates. Their entire argument is characterised by unverifiable, psuedo-scientific claims and selective facts, taken out of context. Most of the inventions that enhance our lives in so many ways now, could never have met the safety standards of those people. The car, electricity, the aeroplane, modern medicine—we would have none of those things available to us today if previous Governments around the world had required their inventors to meet the Green Party’s standards for proof of safety. It is just plain ludicrous.

Luckily for us now, as in the past, and despite this Luddite wing of the Green movement’s best efforts, their stalling tactics will not work. Because of the unreliability of the Green Party as a supporting partner of the Government during the last parliamentary term, and its willingness to bring a duly elected New Zealand Government down over this single issue, the current moratorium is designed to lift automatically. Even if we do nothing else in this House this year, the moratorium will still automatically lift in October. Some may accuse United Future members of not extending the moratorium, but that is clearly not within our power. Any initiative to extend the moratorium rests with the Government. We are thankful that the voters of New Zealand gave sufficient support to United Future to enable us to play a moderating role in this process, and to break the stranglehold the Greens had over the Government after the collapse of the Alliance. United Future is satisfied that this bill does everything that can sensibly be done to minimise and manage any risks posed by GM technology to the New Zealand environment, and we are supporting its introduction to this House today, and its referral to the select committee, in order to ensure that all those regulatory measures are in place before October.

While we do not deny the right of the Greens, members of other groups such as the Sustainability Council, organic farmers, and others, to have their voices heard, those voices must represent only part of the discussion. One reason for our attitude towards this discussion, and our confidence that our approach is the responsible one, is that the people who will be most affected by GM technology are, for the most part, strongly supportive of it. Those people are New Zealand’s farmers. The biggest farming lobby group, Federated Farmers of New Zealand, supports the bill’s commitment to case by case assessment. This approach was part of their submission to the royal commission. According to one of their spokespeople, at least, it appears to be much more concerned that this new bill does not end up unnecessarily stifling scientific innovation than with any concerns for their own environmental safety. To quote Neil Barton: “It is vital that scientific innovation is not stifled by extreme obstacles.” Supporting Federated Farmers’ optimistic assessment are the papers the Government released recently relating to coexistence between different forms of agriculture and the effects of genetic modification technology on the New Zealand economy. Those papers were perfectly sensible and based on quite rigorous scientific analysis.

The paper on the economic impacts of GM at the very least demonstrates that the lifting of the moratorium is unlikely to have negative consequences for the New Zealand economy, and is quite likely to have at least a small, positive effect. As I said in my press release last week, the key point made in that paper in that respect is that overseas consumers are unlikely to base their purchase decisions on whether the product’s country of origin is GE free. In fact, they are unlikely even to know New Zealand’s GE status in the first place. The survey showing some overseas consumers would make a decision on that basis is misleading, because it specifically brings New Zealand’s GE status to the forefront of the survey participant’s mind and asks them to make an abstract judgment. In reality, they are unlikely to be thinking about that issue, or to know where New Zealand stands when making a purchase, and are more likely to make a purchasing decision based on price.

The paper on the coexistence of GM and non-GM crops is even more rigorous and is based on sound science and common sense. It advocates treating each GM crop on a very rigorous case by case basis, instead of having a generic framework for all genetically modified organisms, as originally recommended by the royal commission. United Future’s policy at the election last year was to continue with a cautious approach to GE, provided all the relevant regulatory and other matters stemming from the royal commission had been properly addressed by that time. With the passage of the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill, United Future will consider that process to be complete.

The bill represents a victory of common sense over ideology and pseudoscience. It presents an opportunity for New Zealand to move forward scientifically and economically. Even symbolically, the failure to move forward and embrace the possibilities of a rapidly advancing technology such as genetic engineering would have seen our country well on the way to becoming poor, irrelevant, and backward, and it would have been a situation entirely of our own making. United Future supports the passage of this bill.

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) : Bill English, the leader of National, dwelt a bit in his speech on the select committee that the bill is to be sent to. I could say that that is probably because of the quality of the chairpersonship within that select committee, but I will not. The reality is that when the last bill, which put on the moratorium, came before the House and was slightly modified for the Government, it was sent to the Finance and Expenditure Committee. One would have assumed that bill would go to the Local Government and Environment Committee, and it was pretty transparent as to why the Government did not send it to that committee.

Hon Ken Shirley: Why was that?

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY: The reason for that was pretty transparent, even though it had to be explained to Ken Shirley at the time. In this particular case, however, it should be pointed out that whilst this bill is to go to the Education and Science Committee—and we do not have any objection to that, and realise there are members on that select committee who were on the Finance and Expenditure Committee review—the thing to note is that the Greens do not even have a vote on the Education and Science Committee.

The House really has to ask itself what is behind that strategy, which leaves the Greens in a very awkward situation. That party said that it would bring down the Government if it was to lift the moratorium. The Green Party has been slapped in the face by this particular manoeuvre, so will it continue to support on a case by case basis any legislation this Government puts through that United Future may object to? I leave it to members of the House, and to people listening to this debate, to consider whether that does not put the Greens in a real quandary.

New Zealand First is a centrist party, and as a result of that, when it comes to any of these particular issues we need to balance up the competing interests, and to consider them from there. We certainly did so when it came to the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification. We assessed that it had come to some very, very sound and sensible conclusions, and therefore we were prepared to support the Government’s position on the royal commission’s findings. Although the royal commission did not specifically state that a moratorium should be put on, it did imply that by stating that before any releases were made certain work needed to be done. Obviously, that work had to be done over a period of time, so therefore there was the implication that there would be some sort of delay in any approval of applications.

Once again, New Zealand First did not see that as being an unsound process, although it seems to have taken an inordinate amount of time. The key issue in that legislation—and it was not there and did not exist before—was that under the existing legislative framework there was no category of conditional release. An application would go in and it was either a question of complete release or non-release, because there was no halfway shop. That seemed a rather silly arrangement.

For example, PPL Therapeutics has a contained experiment in sheep; it has a flock of 2,500 genetically modified sheep in the mid-Waikato. The world has not caved in as a result of that, and rather than having concerns about the sheep getting out, PPL Therapeutics is more concerned about some randy rams from outside getting inside its valuable stud. The issue is that if PPL Therapeutics wanted to proceed on a commercial basis and wanted to put in an application in the legislative environment prior to this, it would have had to put an application in that applied across the whole country. PPL Therapeutics does not necessarily want to do that; it wants to keep the experiment limited for the time being. The potential gains that may come from that particular project would provide relief for people with cystic fibrosis and emphysema. Anyone who knows anything about cystic fibrosis knows it is a very, very cruel malady and we should be doing anything we can to assist in providing relief from it.

The unfortunate situation with regard to those who would put a blanket ban upon all genetic engineering (GE) work within New Zealand is that those very opportunities would be missed. That is why it is essential that this legislation goes through. It puts in place the conditions under which the moratorium can be lifted. I attended a “biopharming” seminar last Monday, and what came out of it was very interesting. Neil Barton said that it was highly unlikely—impossible—that there would be large-scale cropping of GE crops in the foreseeable future.

Hon Ken Shirley: Absolutely impossible?

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY: He did not say absolutely impossible, and that is be fair enough. It is highly unlikely because large-scale cropping does not make any economic sense. In fact, what will occur is the small-scale stuff with conditions around it in the field of “biopharming”, biotechnology, and bioreactors, etc. That work is already at the experimental stage and could be moved on.

But there is another issue in this particular field as to why it is so important that this legislation goes through, even though there are one or two areas that I have to point out we have some concerns about. That issue is that the economic benefits of this new technology will not go to the people out on the farms; they will go to the people with the intellectual property rights. If we lose our opportunities to keep up the intellectual property rights—and we are very good at creating intellectual property—we will lose opportunities for the future. Marian Hobbs has talked about best-case and worst-case scenarios economically. I think we do have to keep a very close eye on the economic modelling, because it depends upon the assumptions and the models we use as to what the consumers’ reaction is expected to be in different countries overseas.

If there is a concern felt by New Zealand First, it is the fact that when the Environmental Risk Management Authority makes a case by case decision there is no requirement for the authority to make any consideration of any potential economic impact, whether good or bad.

Hon Marian Hobbs: There is.

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY: OK. One of the things I say to the Minister is that when we go through this bill we will scrutinise it rigorously. We will do that over another particular issue, and that is whether the processes that are put in place will allow for frivolous litigation by groups like Mothers Against Genetic Engineering, purely and simply on an ideological basis, to hold up worthwhile projects just by putting in submissions through the public process. That cannot be allowed to happen.

There are two things that the royal commission suggested needed to be done prior to any release. The first was to do further work on horizontal gene transfer, and I would have to say we would be much more comfortable if some of the work had proceeded a little bit further down the track, because that is still an unresolved issue. The second suggestion—and it was reported at the symposium on Monday—relates to a piece of research around pollen spread, and trying to find out what the movement of plant materials is, that is being carried out by Lincoln University. Obviously, that is very reputable research. However, it has only just been commissioned. That is the sort of information the Environment Risk Management Authority needs right now, when it is making its decisions. We have to ask why the Government has delayed commissioning some of the research that is quite important for the authority in terms of being able to make its conditional judgements. Baz Walker told the symposium that it is highly unlikely that anyone will get an unconditional release application approved at this point in time. It was good to hear that, given the parameters in which he is operating, he could not see the likelihood of that occurring in the immediate future.

Finally, I say we have genuine concerns about the call-back processes around the issues called “spiritual”, because that term is actually ambiguous. It has two particular meanings and, depending upon which one of those meanings someone is utilising, mischief could be made. We have, for example, a secular education system, but we still talk about promoting “spiritual values”, and it is not religious spiritual values but values of a different nature that are being promoted in this bill. I believe it is really important that we look at that word and at what it actually means to different people, in order to ensure we do not have mischief made as a result of the wording of this legislation.

Nevertheless, I say New Zealand First will be supporting the bill and we guarantee it will be given the scrutiny that is justified throughout the select committee process.

DAVID PARKER (NZ Labour—Otago) : I rise to speak in support of the bill. Firstly, I thank Mr Donnelly for his contribution. It was a very considered and, I thought, a wise assessment of the underlying issues. I come from a background of having been involved in a number of biotechnology ventures before I arrived in Parliament. Because of the commercial imperatives, and also because of the moratorium, none of them involved genetic modification (GM), but quite a few of them came close to that. So my interest in the subject of this debate predates my arrival here, and, indeed, I was a submitter to the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification.

At the heart of some of the things I submitted on were the process issues, which are now covered by this new legislation. The submission that I and quite a few other submitters made was that it is appropriate to have levels of care imposed by the legislation that reflect the level of seriousness of what is being contemplated. So I am pleased to see here that amongst the other things in this bill, one of them is the streamlining of the process of approving low-risk genetic modification work within contained laboratories. Under this legislation, if it is passed in its present form after going to the select committee, the approval that a university, for example, may have for experiments in a contained laboratory will enable approval of the project, rather than approval being required for each organism or each change to an organism as that project takes place.

One of the reasons it is important not to clutter up the regulatory environment with low-risk things is that it is important that the higher-risk things are accorded the priority they deserve for proper and careful consideration. Under this bill, if passed, the most detailed and most cautious assessment is reserved for the cases of conditional or unconditional release where the environmental effects are potentially more serious.

I will give a practical example of why I am pleased to see there is yet another level of consideration that can be given. There is a power introduced to deal with emergency situations, and the example I like to use as to why that is appropriate is the case of Great Britain recently, with its terrible foot-and-mouth outbreak. One of the choices that Great Britain faced was whether to vaccinate its cattle against foot-and-mouth. The reason that countries are very reluctant to use foot-and-mouth vaccines is that they are live vaccines—a live organism is injected into the animal. When an immunised animal is tested it is difficult to ascertain whether the animal has the foot-and-mouth symptoms as a consequence of immunisation, or as a consequence of the wild virus. For that reason, Great Britain felt constrained to kill hundreds of thousands of livestock at the cost of great suffering to the animals, and also at great environmental cost as it incinerated them.

There is a good argument to be made that if a genetically modified vaccine was available, which would be a live organism that included markers in it to identify it as being a genetically modified organism, then if an animal was injected as part of the immunisation process with that genetically modified organism (GMO)—because it would be a GMO—in that live vaccine, then upon the animal exhibiting symptoms of food-and-mouth following vaccination, it would be possible to ascertain whether it had the live wild form of the virus or had just been vaccinated. I think that simple example of a situation that would, or may, come to pass if the most terrible of all things happened to our primary production industry—if foot-and-mouth ever became established in New Zealand—serves to illustrate why it is important that we do not have a blanket ban but procedures, as proposed by the bill, to allow the appropriate level of regulatory control, reflecting the level of risk.

Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ) : ACT will support this bill to the select committee. On balance, we think it contains some very valuable progress on this issue. We do have some reservations about it, and I will cover those in my speech. We recognise that the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, passed in 1996, in many respects puts New Zealand in a very advantageous position in terms of the Environment Risk Management Authority that we have. I do not think anyone anticipated—well, I guess we always expected it—the level of concern at the marketing aspects of genetic modification (GM), and the impact that it will have on our economy. I think it was with quite some foresight, even in the early 1990s, that we took that step, and I know many other countries around the world wish they had also had legislation of this nature on their statute book.

That is not to say that we got it all right. I think we overdid the process, just as we did with the Resource Management Act. We made some pretty tough situations for ourselves that were unnecessary, and in many respects this bill picks up on those. I commend the Minister and the officials for bringing these amendments to Parliament so that we can, hopefully, on what is a critical issue for New Zealand, keep a very streamlined process.

I note, as others have, that the royal commission did not recommend a moratorium. I believe it was a mistake of this Labour Government to call for a moratorium. The ACT party opposed the moratorium. The royal commission did some very good work, and some very important matters came to the public’s attention by way of the royal commission report. I think that its greatest role was perhaps to educate lay people on the issues associated with, and the importance of, the new biotechnology. That was a plus. However, it was clear that the Labour Government, which was dependent upon the Greens in the previous Parliament, was captured by them in its political agenda, so it used an old political trick of calling for a moratorium in order to park the problem. That is all that the moratorium was.

The moratorium has cost the New Zealand economy dearly. Many of our top researchers in the biological sciences have left for opportunities off shore, because their particular science was truncated by that moratorium process. That is regrettable; many of them will not return to this country. It is a big world out there, with all manner of opportunities, particularly for those who are highly skilled in the new biotechnology sciences.

Equally, I know a number of companies that have quietly left this country, or have left processes that they had intended to carry out in this country, using New Zealand researchers and facilities on subjects that would have been of huge benefit to this country. Those companies have just quietly gone away. They do not want publicity over it, because that would just draw attention to them. I know that in the forestry sector, major forestry companies that were doing GM work have relocated to the United States with billion-dollar projects, and that work is now being carried out there. That has been a loss to the New Zealand economy. To think that as a country we could just stand still for 2 years and mark time, and that the rest of the world would not move forward, was a very naive position, and I do think it was regrettable.

The Greens were instrumental in calling for the moratorium and for the royal commission report, and then when it did not say what they wanted it to—and they were ticked off by the royal commission for giving false evidence, in essence, for which they apologised to it; that was on their website—they said GM was a political line in the sand, and that they would bring the Government down if it proceeded with such measures. This bill and something that will happen next week will be the test of the Greens, because, if they were sincere, they would not support this Government’s Budget next week.

Jeanette Fitzsimons: We don’t. We will move a motion of no confidence.

Hon KEN SHIRLEY: I see; the Greens sit on the fence. If the Greens want to walk the talk—and they said they wanted to bring the Government down—they would vote against the Budget next week for supply and confidence, but they are not prepared to do that. The Greens make all the noise, promise their constituents that they are doing all that they can, and make a threat, but it is quite clear that next Thursday when we debate the Budget, the Greens will sit on the fence. They will not vote against the Budget. That is the real test, but the Greens are not prepared to walk the talk on this issue. Much of their talk has been well off the mark, and I deeply regret that the damage done to the New Zealand economy by not making progress over the past 2 years in biotechnology is, to a large extent, a result of the hype of the Greens and of the emotive debates and campaigns that they have run—not just in this Parliament, but up and down the country.

There are some very useful amendments in this bill. To extend the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act to regulate and restrict human cells and the regeneration of animals not presently in New Zealand from tissue is important. Stem cell technology is a new area, and I think we have to proceed very carefully with some of the provisions there. I note with regard to that provision that one could use tissue from moa to bring them back. Moa have been extinct for perhaps only 500 or 700 years, so, technically, we could probably bring them back, though I do not know what the Minister for the Environment would think about that. Technically, one could bring the dinosaurs back, but there is a difference between 500 years and 65 million years.

Hon Marian Hobbs: They’re already here.

Hon KEN SHIRLEY: The Minister is admitting that she is already here as a dinosaur. That is an interesting provision.

The second key provision is to streamline the process of approving low-risk GM work within contained laboratories, by providing for approval of such modifications on a project, rather than an organism, basis. That has been a huge source of frustration, particularly to those doing work with strains of bacteria and the like, where one has to get a separate approval for each strain of bacteria, and one might be dealing with dozens or scores of different strains as part of one’s research. So the central thing is to approve the project, and to let researchers in controlled laboratory situations bring in the strains required—and, for that matter, develop new strains—without having to go back for a protracted, lengthy, bureaucratic process on each one. That is certainly sensible.

I think streamlining the procedures for the assessment and approval of animal or human medicines is also important. Comments have already been made about diseases such as cystic fibrosis, and the options that GM science offers us for progress there. The Malaghan Institute of Medical Research and others are right at the cutting edge of research there. We know, with regard to multiple sclerosis, that the myelin work that was being done at Ruakura using modified calves was unfortunately held up by the moratorium, and that is regrettable. Sufferers of multiple sclerosis and their families up and down the country are desperately looking to the cutting-edge research that seems to hold so much promise at this stage.

I share the concerns expressed by the Leader of the Opposition, the leader of the National Party, with regard to new Part 4A inserted by clause 10. That part sets up a committee and imports the whole Māori consultation thing derived from the treaty provision into what is, essentially, a scientific bill that in this case relates to new organisms. There is a universal scientific method that transcends all cultures. People talk about Māori science, and say that it is somehow different from the universal scientific method. Māori culture and tradition certainly can make a very valuable contribution to science, but to suggest that Māori science is somehow different and should not be subject to the rigour of the universal scientific method, which is based on the rational analysis of proven facts, is highly spurious. It invites us to go down the path of what we have seen in relation to the Resource Management Act, where a provision like that can be used on a leverage basis to delay and frustrate what should be a very straightforward process on a very complex issue.

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) : The Minister says that this bill is to implement the Report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification, which advised that we should proceed with caution. This bill does indeed carry on the Government’s intention to proceed, but many of us are looking for whatever happened to “with caution”. It would have been entirely possible to proceed with all the opportunities, the economic benefits, the scientific knowledge, and the health benefits of what we are currently doing in contained laboratories. We could have had new medical uses, new diagnostic tools, and new advantages to agriculture that would have sped up and assisted ordinary selective breeding without the need to release anything into the environment. That would have been proceeding with caution.

The royal commission suggested we preserve opportunities. The Government is indeed preserving all the opportunities for genetic engineers, but not the opportunities for those who wish to do other things. It is implementing the royal commission’s report very selectively, and I will list six ways in which that is the case. The royal commission said very clearly that we should not use animals that are used for food as bioreactors; in other words, we should not genetically engineer them to create pharmaceuticals. Yet one of the projects the Government is most strongly in support of is the cows at Ruakura, which are being engineered with human genes to make medicines. The Government has shown a number of times that it thinks that biopharming, using food crops and animals to make industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals, is where this country should go. So that is one recommendation that has been completely rejected.

Secondly, the royal commission said that before there was any release a lot of work should be done on the risks of horizontal gene transfer, which we currently understand rather poorly, particularly in relation to soils. There are some research programmes; we do not know quite what they are looking at, but none of them will report until long after the lifting of the moratorium, when release will already be out there. It would be a pity if we were to find at that stage that horizontal gene transfer poses risks we never thought of. Thirdly, the royal commission said we should ensure that coexistence can proceed between GE and non-GE crops. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry did a big report on coexistence, and it delivered its findings just before Easter. Basically, its recommendation is exactly what the royal commission said: that coexistence can occur, provided we do not mind non-GE crops being contaminated with GE organisms. In other words, we will have to accept a level of 1 percent GE contamination of GE-free and organic crops. But as time goes on, that percentage will get higher and higher. It is just going to be imposed on all those who do not want GE, whether or not they like it. That is not coexistence; that is contamination.

Fourthly, the royal commission said we should develop a strategy to manage resistance of insects to Bacillus thuringiensis crops. is an important insecticide that many farmers use and that will lose its effectiveness if too many crops are grown. I was looking forward to seeing what was to be done about that. The strategy turns out to be the same as has been used for years in the United States, where it has failed. It turns out that the refuges for breeding non-resistant insects make the matter worse, because the resistance is actually dominant, not the other way around.

Fifthly, the royal commission said we should develop a strategy for bees, which, of course, fly 5 or 6 kilometres in some circumstances, and it is very difficult to get a bee to understand that it should fly north rather than west. What is this strategy on bees after months of work on this Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry report? It is simply that beekeepers will have the responsibility of looking on the Internet to find out where the registered sites of GE crops are grown, and take their hives away from them. So all the responsibility is to be put on the innocent parties who do not want GE contamination; none is to be put on the GE farmers themselves.

Finally, the royal commission said that we should do some real research on the economic impacts on New Zealand of releasing GE organisms. Treasury commissioned a report, which, if one reads it—rather than the purported summary by Treasury, which is just spin—one finds that it establishes no business case for the release of GE organisms in New Zealand. Neither does it establish any clear economic benefit. In fact, the Minister misrepresented what that report shows. It does not show that the most likely case is a small economic benefit. We can get to that point only if we adopt our own assumptions about what we think will happen, which means that the markets will not react against GE food, never mind that they are doing it now to everybody else, as they are not going to accept our food any less because it is genetically engineered. Also there will be huge productivity gains, which has not been the case with soybeans in the United States. If one takes those two implausible assumptions, then one can make the numbers come out looking positive—that is the only way one can do it.

So it is no surprise that the Minister is so embarrassed that she is not prepared to send this bill to any select committee on which there is a Green member. The committee that oversees the Environmental Risk Management Authority, which does its financial reviews, which oversees the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, and which dealt with and passed the first amendment bill to that Act in the previous term, is the Local Government and Environment Committee. But the bill is not going there. The committee that dealt with the last amendment to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act in May last year was the Finance and Expenditure Committee, which had representation on it from all parties, and parties tended to substitute. No, the bill is going to the Education and Science Committee, which is one of only two subject committees in this Parliament on which the Greens have no representative, at all. So there will be nobody on the committee to challenge the Government with a science-based argument to address the real problem—the central problem of gene technology—which is that the organisms created are inherently unpredictable; that the transgene can behave unpredictably and could cause other genes to behave unpredictably. This is widely recognised by laboratory scientists as a major irritation when doing GE experiments in the laboratory, but, when it gets out into the environment, it is a lot more than an irritation, and it can be a disaster.

I got an email just after the debate in this House in May last year on the previous bill dealing with GE. It was from a leading United States geneticist, whom I have never met. I was very surprised he had even heard of me. This guy emailed that he was appalled at the lack of knowledge exhibited by the debate in this House about genetics and about genetic engineering. He sent me some material he had written, which he asked me to circulate to members so they could be better informed for the next debate. I will circulate it now that there is a bill before the House that it relates to.

This bill introduces conditional release. The Government’s explanatory note to the bill states that the purpose of conditional release is to allow out into the environment genetically engineered organisms that cannot meet the minimum standards of the Act for release. It will do that in the full knowledge that the conditions it is to impose will sometimes fail. That comes directly from the explanatory note to the bill. Let me quote what it states on page 19: “Costs could be incurred if the new organism has unforeseen impacts or impacts that cannot adequately be controlled, even with the conditions imposed at the time of release. These costs may be on individuals in the form of non-GM users or across the community as a whole.” Where are the benefits that are supposed to be outweighing these costs to the community and to individuals? We are not told. However, if these conditions fail and these costs occur, there will be no liability, because the liability provisions in the bill apply only if someone breaks the law. We are not particularly concerned about the harm that may result if people break the law. We think that, probably, they will generally observe it. We are concerned about the harm that will result when the law itself does not understand what the likely effects will be and therefore does not put any rules in place in terms of protection.

The Government says in the explanatory note that liability is really no different from any other risk. Well, if that is the case, why is there no insurance company in the world that will insure against the risks from GE? That in itself says the situation is different. There ought to be strict liability for harm, whether or not one has broken the law. It is the only thing that will make people take responsibility for their actions. This is the capture of New Zealand by a few who wish to get very rich at the expense of the many. When history shows that this has been a disaster, the Government will be held responsible for what will be seen as treason, and the Green Party will be there to remind them.

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

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson) : In speaking to the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill, I firstly must take issue with the Minister for the Environment, who is developing a reputation as one of the most devious Ministers with regard to parliamentary process. I want to outline exactly why I hold those views.

David Benson-Pope: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not believe that that is acceptable parliamentary language, and I ask that it be withdrawn.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That is not out of order.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Let me tell members why the Minister for the Environment is being devious. One would not have to be an Albert Einstein to recognise that the Green Party has some interest in genetic modification (GM). I would suspect that even if one were the most remote, disinterested observer of New Zealand politics, one would know that the Green Party has an interest. I have a very different view from the Green Party on the issue of GM, but to deliberately send a bill that goes to the core of environmental policy to the one committee on which the Green Party is not represented can only be described as devious. The Labour Government, which for 3 years depended on the votes of the Green Party to keep it in Government, now wants to pull off that sort of a dirty trick. That is wrong.

I say to Larry Baldock, who supports that dirty trick, that it is like saying that a bill on family issues—one that might be of importance to the United Future party—is to be sent to the one select committee on which his party is not represented. Would the member think that was fair? Would the member think that was good parliamentary process? Of course he would not. But that party—United Future—is being a party to parliamentary processes that are a complete abuse of Parliament. Let me ask Mr Baldock why this is going to the one select committee on which the Green Party is not represented. [Interruption] Is that not interesting! I ask why that Minister is in bed with the United Future party on this issue, when he argued strongly that the original hazardous substances and new organisms legislation had to go to an environment committee? I have it in . Why is this bill not going to the Local Government and Environment Committee? Can any Government member opposite tell me why legislation that amends the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act is not going to the Local Government and Environment Committee? I say that one reason is that the Government is determined to thwart the process.

The second challenge I have for the Minister is this: 18 months ago, the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification released its report. The Minister has had over a year to sort out the Government’s policy, yet now she wants to rush the parliamentary process. Having had so long to consider it as Minister, and saying: “I can stuff around for months and months and months.”, she now includes a rushed process in her motion on this bill. I ask the Minister how many times that will happen. I know of no other Minister in my 13 years in Parliament who has developed such an appalling reputation for abuse of Parliament. The Minister stands up as the schoolteacher in support of open democracy, and then introduces a bill into the House that locks out any submissions whatsoever. That Minister keeps on abusing the parliamentary process and at the same time is introducing the Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) and the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill, which are all about consultation. I say to the Minister that she should start practising what she preaches. She cannot introduce bills into the House that demand proper process when she keeps breaking the rules and cheating.

Hon Marian Hobbs: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I really object to that language. I have never cheated.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: You haven’t!

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I sustain the objection.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Let me tell members exactly what the Minister is doing. This is a bill about the environment, and this Minister is not sending it to the Local Government and Environment Committee.

Hon Marian Hobbs: I raise a point of order, Speaker. This bill is about science. There is nothing wrong with sending legislation to the Education and Science Committee. I still object to that member calling me a cheat.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the honourable member. It is a debatable issue. However, I ask the member, because the Minister has taken offence and I consider that to be a personal reflection under Standing Order 117, to stand and apologise.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I apologise, but that Minister cannot get away with the way in which she abuses parliamentary process. She brings the Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2)—which we debated earlier today—into the House and shuts down submissions on it. She gives an instruction to the committee that we cannot hear from anybody but her officials, and then has the cheek to introduce bills that are all about openness of process—everybody being involved.

I say to the Minister that she should start practising what she preaches. I ask her why this bill is being sent to the one committee that does not have Green Party representation. Is that not a bit sneaky? Is that not a bit dirty? It would not take a guess to know that the Green Party has some issues about genetic modification. It is one of the biggest political issues of the last 5 years, and this sneaky Minister moves that this bill be developed by the Education and Science Committee. When we were in Government, the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Bill went to an environment committee, but that Minister is intent, not only on shortening the process but also on denying a party that has a legitimate interest in the process. That is an outrage, and that Minister needs to have a damned hard look in the mirror about the way she is treating Parliament, because she is disrupting all its processes and traditions for dealing with sensitive legislation.

Hon Tony Ryall: Boo-Boo Minister.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: It is, as my colleague Tony Ryall says. She is a “Boo-Boo” Minister by name and “Boo-Boo” Minister by nature. I then challenge the timing of these issues. I want to know from the Minister and from the Government—[Interruption] Give them a little bit of stick and hold them accountable for the legislation they advance, and Mr Benson-Pope starts to get all stroppy and sensitive! I want an answer to this question. How is it that the Government has 18 months to consider the royal commission report and now wants a truncated select committee process? The Minister should start treating Parliament with some respect. If she is to take 18 months to consider that report, how does she now justify saying to the House and to the select committee that they cannot have the normal length of time to consider the bill? The reason, I say to the Minister, is that she not been on top of her job. She has not been keeping up. We should have seen amendments—

Hon Tony Ryall: The weakest link.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The weakest link, my colleague Tony Ryall says, and I suspect he is correct.

I also want to point out to the House just how bureaucratic and costly the Government is making biotechnology. Effectively, the Government is saying that it favours, and is on the side of, science; but in the next breath, it says it is creating a regulatory regime that is so expensive and bureaucratic that it makes science well-nigh impossible. I say to the Minister that she may as well sign up to the Green Party’s policy of a GE-free New Zealand, because she is putting such large expenses and processes in place that the only organisations that are likely to meet the costs will be the public sector science entities, funded by the good old taxpayer.

The fourth point I wish to make is this, that again the Minister is having us chase spirits. There are clauses in this bill that ask us to take into account the spiritual effects of genetic technology. I thought we were to take a science-based approach. I thought we were to have legislation that allowed decisions to be made on the basis of the best science possible. I say to the House that it is an awful error of judgment for this Minister, time and time again, to roll legislation into this House that has us dealing with spiritual elements. How are we to have scientists, courts, and lawyers arguing about how you protect spirits with the Resource Management Act and, now, the new spiritual effects that must be taken into account under this hazardous substances bill? I want the Minister to explain. How does one protect the spirits? How can one, when making a decision about whether to approve or not approve a genetic modification—or some other element contained in this legislation—possibly make judgments in that regard?

We on this side of the House say that one should have respect for people’s spiritual beliefs, but it should not be put in law. The Government is treading all over that and upsetting the balance by, on the one hand, saying it wants a science-based approach, and on the other, putting all of this sort of spiritual nonsense into law. It will add to the compliance costs and the uncertainty, it will be a field day for lawyers, and it will not serve New Zealand’s interests well. I say to the Minister that it is another boo boo, another botch-up, and another truncated select committee process. There are a few elements in this bill that have some merit, but, my goodness, there is a lot more harm in it than good.

DAVID BENSON-POPE (NZ Labour—Dunedin South) : I am pleased to rise in support of this legislation. I must say that I am disappointed at the irrelevant and personal comments made by the previous speaker. I think they do not do him, the House, or the process any credit.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato) : Undoubtedly the outcome of this bill is hugely important to New Zealand and hugely important to science. National will be supporting the bill going to the Education and Science Committee, but with grave reservations. Those reservations are very much about the onerous process provisions in this bill, because unless this bill is substantially and wisely amended at the select committee, it stands the chance of becoming the Resource Management Act of biotechnology.

Hon Ken Shirley: On steroids!

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Maybe; that is absolutely right. Undoubtedly the most contentious aspects of this bill are the provisions that relate to conditional release and to the lifting of the moratorium on 31 October, which will allow commercial release. But what are the realities of this actually happening? Only last week at a “biopharming” conference held at the Royal Society, Dr Basil Walker of the Environmental Risk Management Authority said that there was little chance of any commercial release occurring in the medium term. Presumably, the medium term means 1 to 4 years. I also understand that the reality of unconditional release is that there is likely to be only two or three applications. They are likely to be highly monitored, almost akin to the monitoring of a field trial. So perhaps this is taking a bit too far the royal commission’s advice to proceed with caution.

It is important to remember what the royal commission did say about the new category of conditional release. It said it was a further assurance of safety, to enhance the management of risk. But this bill, on its application by the regulatory body, the Environmental Risk Management Authority, undoubtedly has to allay public concern through its scientific rigour. But I have absolutely no doubt that the process that it contains needs substantial and serious amending in order to allow both affordable research and timely research to be carried out in New Zealand.

It is relevant that the royal commission did state that continuation of research is critical to New Zealand’s future. In its growth and innovation strategy this Labour Government chose biotechnology as one of the ways that New Zealand would add value to its primary commodities, and thus help lift us into the top half of the OECD. It is highly relevant that, around the world, competing countries are pouring huge amounts of money into biotechnology. Singapore, for instance—the size of Lake Taupo, and with no dependence on primary products—has a multibillion-dollar programme for biotechnology alone. Singapore describes its commitment to biotechnology as the fourth pillar of economic growth in that country. Australia also has committed vastly greater resources than New Zealand, both publicly and privately, to this field of biotechnology.

But what is in huge contrast to New Zealand’s legislation is that while Australia has a system that is scientifically robust and rigorous, its system ensures that the applicant will have his or her project processed, including publication, within 6 months, and at minimal cost. It is a huge worry that in New Zealand, where on the one hand the royal commission says the continuation of research is critical to New Zealand’s future, the reality of the hurdles and costs created by this bill in relation to the carrying out of research are so highly onerous that, even before the bill is passed, we have two examples of AgResearch having to pay over half a million dollars to have its applications processed. That sort of money is simply not within the reach of the smaller biotechnology companies.

One of the good aspects of this bill is that it makes it easier to process low-risk applications. But Labour should not feel smug about that. Streamlining low-risk applications has been requested up and down the country, by the Crown research institutes, the universities, and research institutions, over the last 3 or 4 years, and it should have happened at least 2 years ago. So the Labour Government should certainly not feel smug about finally getting round to it—finally taking away one of the small hurdles, and thus indeed progressing science in New Zealand.

Another issue of real concern is that only last week the chief executive of PPL Therapeutics, at the “biopharming” conference of the Royal Society, said that so long as each and every Environmental Risk Management Authority application for transgenic herd production was subject to public debate, investment by biotechnology companies would dry up and wither away. He also noted: “The treaty and Māori considerations create yet another level of uncertainty of the outcome of any application, which investors find extremely difficult to comprehend.” Inherent in this bill is the possibility of absolutely endless public consultation and endless delays due to the amendments that “allow or extend the grounds on which the Minister may call in specific applications to include significant cultural, ethical, and spiritual effects.” The regulatory onerousness of this legislation is diametrically opposed to the Government’s rhetoric of wanting to lift our economic growth by focusing on and progressing biotechnology.

It is also of huge concern to the New Zealand scientific fraternity when the Environmental Risk Management Authority tells it that it can process the science in 6 weeks, but the bioethics may take from 6 months to infinity. I hope the Minister is listening to this, because it is hugely important that the science indeed is rigorous, but it is just as important, if we are thinking about economic growth in New Zealand, that we do not have the drawn-out process that her bill at present, unfortunately, is totally enwrapped in. The regulatory processes of the bill that apply to medium-risk and high-risk research are just too complex and too uncertain.

It is interesting that the Sustainability Council has expressed its support for genetic engineering in relation to medicine, but believes there will be substantial negative impact, by changing our so-called clean, green image, or GE-free status. The council advocates that the moratorium on release should remain for a further 5 years. But it is highly significant to look around the world and see what the reality of experience is. For instance, Argentina, with over 11 million hectares of genetically engineered crops, increased exports of organic honey to Europe between 2000 and 2001.

This month we have had two New Zealand Government reports dealing with coexistence and with the economy. Of course, the Greens have interpreted those reports extremely differently from the Government. They have zero tolerance of the release of genetically modified organisms, yet this very night, in the science debate in this complex, we heard from the chief scientist at Lincoln University that zero tolerance is an absolute impossibility. It is high time that the Greens accepted the reality of risk management.

I end by saying that the processes involved in this bill must be considerably amended before it goes through the select committee.

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Police) : It is almost 2 years since the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification reported to the Government. At that time it advised the Government to proceed with caution. The procedures laid out in this bill will help us to do just that. I support the passage of the bill through the House.

Hon DOVER SAMUELS (Minister of State) : I rise to support the bill. It forms part of the Government’s response to the report of the royal commission. I say to the Minister in charge of this bill that it is a job well done. I recommend that it be passed by the House.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) : I move, That the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill be referred to the Education and Science Committee and that it be an instruction to the committee to present its final report on or before 5 September 2003, and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting—except during questions for oral answer—and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 193 and 196(1)(b) and (c)., referred to the Education and Science Committee

Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ) : I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. There is a clear understanding that select committees do not sit when the House has taken urgency. I have learnt from past experience that I need to move an amendment to that motion, for that not to occur. I therefore propose an amendment to add the proviso that the committee not meet at times when the House has taken urgency.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the honourable member for drawing that to my attention. However, it is not a point of order. And no written copy of the amendment was handed in before the debate concluded.