Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) : I move, That the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill be now read a second time. The bill consists of five parts, and a new second schedule to be substituted in the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. Parts 1 and 2 amend the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act; Parts 3 to 5 amend respectively the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act, the Medicines Act, and the Biosecurity Act. All of the changes relate to one of two themes: to implement Government decisions in response to the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification by providing a practical framework for proceeding with caution in the management of new and genetically modified organisms, while preserving opportunities; and, secondly, to improve the overall effectiveness of the operation of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act as it relates to the management of new organisms.

It is essential that these changes are put in place before the restricted period ends at the close of 29 October 2003 so that the Environmental Risk Management Authority has all the tools when it considers applications. The bill was referred to the Education and Science Committee on 6 May 2003. The committee received submissions and undertook a thorough consideration of the bill. The committee reported back to the House on 1 September, and recommended that the bill be passed with the amendments shown. I want to thank the committee for its timely work on these complex matters. I also want to thank the chair, Brian Donnelly, for focusing on the legislation in front of the committee, and not pretending to be a second royal commission on genetic modification.

Before moving on to the detail of the recommendations, I want to make the general observation that all the recommendations of the committee are technical amendments, clarifications, or drafting corrections. None of the provisions in the bill required substantive amendment. I think that that is a reflection of the extensive consultation and thought that went into developing the policy and the original drafting of the bill, and I commend all those involved. I want to comment on key elements of the changes recommended by the select committee in relation to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, Biosecurity Act, and Medicines Act. No changes were recommended to the proposed Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act amendments.

There are four areas of recommended changes that I want to refer to. The first area concerns definitions to be inserted into the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. The Government agrees with the committee’s recommendations relating to definitions in clauses 5 and 6 to clarify the meaning of “taxonomic classification” and the generation of a new organism from imported biological material. The Government also supports the amendment to the meaning of “new organism” in the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, to make it clear that organisms that are approved for conditional release, or qualifying organisms—that is, certain animal or human medicines that are approved for release with controls—remain new organisms and therefore remain subject to hazardous substances and new organism regulation. There were other important drafting amendments to ensure that qualifying organisms are referred to correctly in the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act and the Medicines Act.

It is through clause 5 that activities that are currently unregulated are brought within the oversight of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. Those activities are the importation or development of genetically modified human cells, and the generation of new organisms from tissue imported into the country. The bill closes a regulatory gap. Although there is no known work going on in the area of regenerating new organisms from tissue, particularly animal tissue, if such activity commences it will be subject to rigorous scrutiny under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. However, genetic modification research in relation to human cells is being undertaken in New Zealand, primarily in universities. Broadly speaking, the purpose of much of this biomedical research is to understand the role and function of genes and their effects on cellular processes, particularly those involved in diseases. This research can involve patients with diseases such as cancer. Cells from diseased tissues are grown and some are genetically modified as part of the studies. The Government therefore supports the committee’s recommendations for transitional provisions for genetically modified human cells and human cell genetic modifications in New Zealand in Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry - approved containment facilities so that this research is not suddenly illegal once the bill is passed into law and is in force.

The second area of recommended changes to the bill that I want to refer to concerns the streamlining processes for low-risk GM research. These changes will reduce compliance costs for researchers doing low-risk genetic modifications by introducing, through clause 20, a rapid assessment process of project applications, and through clause 19, clarifying that approvals of this kind can be delegated to institutional biological safety committees. The Government supports the committee’s change to the title of proposed section 42A to make it clear that the bill is introducing a new rapid assessment process for projects that meet the criteria for low-risk genetic modification. Some submitters expressed uncertainty about whether clause 20 would affect approval processes relating to genetic modification developments that were not low risk. There is no intention for clause 20 to do so. Proposed new section 42A does not limit existing activities carried out under section 40 of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, including so-called generic applications.

The third area of recommended changes to the bill that I want to refer to concerns the amendment to the Biosecurity Act, relating to biosecurity clearance. Under the bill, conditionally released organisms remain new organisms. The same goes for qualifying organisms that are released with controls. It is important for organisms subject to these two types of approval to remain new organisms so that they continue to be regulated under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. This is important as the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has a key role in enforcing the management of conditionally released new organisms. However, the Biosecurity Act prohibits the granting of a biosecurity clearance for any imported new organism. Therefore the Government supports the amendment to the Biosecurity Act to allow biosecurity clearance for new organisms that are approved for conditional release and qualifying organisms that are approved for release with controls.

The final area of recommended changes to the bill that I want to refer to concerns the role of local authorities in managing genetically modified organisms. The Government supports the committee’s recommendation to broaden the requirement of the Environmental Risk Management Authority to notify any local authority, rather than just regional councils, if it considers that the local authority is likely to have an interest in the application. The Government is firmly of the view, however, that the Environmental Risk Management Authority is the regulator of genetically modified organisms. The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act is special-purpose legislation designed to regulate genetic modification activities and genetically modified organisms. It does not give local councils powers to regulate genetically modified organisms, and although some councils would like to do so, I ask them to think very carefully before they attempt to duplicate the Environmental Risk Management Authority’s role and put their communities and ratepayers through the expense that this might involve.

The Government does intend to move some minor technical amendments during the Committee stage, but otherwise considers that the bill, as reported, is consistent with the underlying objectives of the original bill. There are a number of matters that those objectives include, but, in the interests of time, I would like to comment, finally, on a new conspiracy that is circulating: that somehow I persuaded the Leader of the House to move the second reading of this bill to tonight—I have to say that this is not so—and that I did so to avoid demonstrations. The bill was reported back, thanks to good chairmanship, earlier than expected, and with the Leader of the House absent last week overseas it was not in the House business notice last week. I am anxious to progress the bill, but it was still news to me at 8.55 this morning that it was going to have its second reading. I suspect that a book about this conspiracy will follow—and there may be a select committee of inquiry, and I know I will have to appear before it! The second conspiracy lies with the problem that at the moment there are emails circulating confusing the shifting of my ministerial office from the 17th to the 6th floor of Bowen House with the non-shifting of my electoral office. So those demonstrators who are heading in that direction can keep on heading.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato) : Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill.

Hon Brian Donnelly: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It was always my understanding that the protocol on speaking slots at the second reading meant that the chairperson of the select committee followed the Minister. Am I incorrect on that?

Jeanette Fitzsimons: I have often thought that that would be an excellent thing to do. As a chair of a select committee, I have always had to wait until slot 6 before I got to speak on the work my committee had done over the previous year, so I think it would be a very good idea to move in that direction.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker, I would be delighted if the chair of the select committee spoke first. I think that he did an excellent job during a very difficult time, and I concede to him.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for that. I am pleased, too.

Hon Ken Shirley: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is very magnanimous of Dr Hutchison to make that call, but you had called him. He had risen and commenced his speech, and a member cannot yield to another member, other than to clarify a question. He cannot yield his whole speech. We need to comply with the Standing Orders, so I raise this matter and ask you to reflect on it.

John Carter: I may well be able to help the House merely by seeking leave, given the comments that have been made. You have called Dr Paul Hutchison, nevertheless I seek leave for Dr Hutchison’s speech not to be recognised at the moment in order to allow you to call Mr Donnelly, and then for Dr Hutchison to take a call at a later stage.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): Leave has been sought. Is there any objection to that? There appears to be none.

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) : Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank Dr Paul Hutchison very much. It is very much appreciated, and I thank members of the House. I understand from Jeanette Fitzsimons that there is no protocol, so I am very appreciative.

From the time the bill was sent to the Education and Science Committee, I certainly knew that there was a great probability we were in for some fun and games—and there were some fun and games. There were issues of members of the public having to be ejected. [Interruption] In fact, the Mothers Against Genetic Engineering organisation did not turn up to the select committee to speak to their written submission. They were invited to but did not turn up. They turned up today.

I make the point that I was determined right from the word go that we would not turn this process into a circus and we would not relitigate the royal commission. I thank the members of the select committee very much for supporting me in that determination by ensuring that we focused upon the legislation and the task in hand. We saw an example here today of exactly the kind of circus the select committee could have been turned into—but it was not. Concerning those people who scream about democratic rights—that they should have the right to come along and talk—I tell the House that Mothers Against Genetic Engineering were invited to make an oral submission, but they did not appear. Yet their members appeared here today. For a moment I thought that they had confused the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill with the “New Orgasms and Other Matters Bill”.

One of the reasons there was so much strong feeling about this legislation was that people had got the story wrong. They thought that this bill was lifting the moratorium—and that was totally incorrect. The 2002 amendment legislation put a moratorium on for a certain time, and after that period of time was up—poof!—it disappeared. This legislation will put in place, or attempt to put in place, mechanisms for a more robust, regulatory environment for when the moratorium goes poof and disappears.

It seemed totally irresponsible, ignorant, or stupid of people to try to gum up the works so that the select committee could not get through its particular task. When 29 October comes, if this legislation is not in place, or has not been passed in some form or other, we are back to the status quo. The select committee asked—and I asked—officials time and time again how we could put something into this bill if it wished to extend the moratorium or wanted to have something in there as a partial extension. They could not give us that information, and the general advice we got from them was that it was beyond the scope of the bill. That does not mean to say that we cannot attempt to do some of those things at the Committee of the whole House stage. However, what was important was that we could not play silly games with the legislation at the select committee stage, report it back after 29 October to embarrass the Government—purely and simply to do that—and leave ourselves in a very awful mess.

There was also some misapprehension about the parliamentary process. People seemed to believe that they should have the right to talk to the select committee on anything they liked, rather than address the bill itself, and that that was their democratic right. I put it to the House that if somebody had made a submission on the Kyoto Protocol and had believed they had a right to address the select committee, I do not believe that that would have been proper. Therefore, the select committee set the rules and stuck by them fairly rigidly to ensure that the circus was not allowed to take place.

I certainly have to give due regard to members of the select committee, because although they had differing views they took a very professional approach to this legislation. It was a time that, even though members recognised and respected the different views people had, it was necessarily acknowledged there was an imperative to advance this legislation appropriately.

It was New Zealand First votes that put on the moratorium; it was not Green votes that put it on. If members recall, at the third reading of the bill that created the moratorium, the Greens abstained and walked out. New Zealand First agreed to the moratorium because we believed that there needed to be a period of time for the Government to put in place what the royal commission was asking to be put in place. But we always said that we would reassess whether the Government had taken all necessary steps, at the time the moratorium was to expire. New Zealand First has done that. Our party has looked at it and asked how far the Government has progressed the regulatory framework.

We believe that the conditional release category is absolutely critical. It is an absolutely important step in order to go forward, so that we can move into some of the areas that have the greatest potential and promise—for example, the “biopharming” area, pest control, etc. We believe that it is necessary for that category to be there. But we asked ourselves a question about the issue of foodstuffs. We looked at what was there, and I must point to the Cabinet minute that noted: “The modelling results suggest that the release of GM organisms closer to the human food chain poses greater economic risks than releases for medical or pest control purposes.” So once we start to get into anything that will go into the human food chain we are starting to get into the area of risk, and we have to ask ourselves whether the mechanism is robust enough to manage that risk—particularly in view of the fact that New Zealand is so dependent upon exported foodstuffs for its economic well-being. Is the mechanism strong enough? We have to ask ourselves that question.

We have come to the conclusion that the Environmental Risk Management Authority has not convinced us that the economic modelling from the authority is powerful enough, at the moment. That same view seems to have been taken by Cabinet, because in the policy paper I am talking about it is agreed that further work is to be undertaken by the Environmental Risk Management Authority, in consultation with relevant departments, on how it would approach its assessment of economic impacts within the context of the proposed coexistent mechanisms. Even the Government is not absolutely convinced that we are safe enough to make those sorts of decisions.

I point also to the answer given by the Minister Marian Hobbs in the House the other day. She said that if an application comes in concerning foodstuffs at the time the moratorium is to expire, it is almost certain that the Minister will use the ministerial call-in. One has to ask why the Minister is automatically going to use the ministerial call-in if there is not an element of anxiety and insecurity about any application that might come in for foodstuffs. New Zealand First will try to move an amendment in the Committee stage for the moratorium to be extended just in that area. Let me tell the House that if we are not able to achieve that, we will bring in legislation to introduce a new moratorium for that category of applications.

I might add that an article by Dr Tony Conner states that we will not have any applications for at least 2 years anyhow, so why should we risk a negative perception of our food exports purely and simply on applications that will not come? They are mythical at this stage, and we may as well be upfront.

The other area we are concerned about is that of local government. We were disappointed that Local Government New Zealand reported to the select committee that it had not been consulted. Albeit that the Government may have made a decision that the Environmental Risk Management Authority and its decisions were to be completely free of the Resource Management Act and local government, it would have been much more pertinent to have gone through the consultative mode. Now we are left in a situation whereby local government bodies are able to impose GMO-free areas, but if they actually insist upon doing that, they will probably be sued and almost certainly lose. It is not exactly an ideal situation. Let us be quite clear about that. Let us make the matter quite clear one way or the other, and have it clarified.

Finally, I will comment on the ministerial call-in powers over spiritual matters. What are we into now? We are into Druidism. That is potentially what we are into here—animism, Druidism, whatever one names it. The ministerial call-in powers are questionable anyhow.

Simon Power: What’s Druidism?

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY: Has the member never read the Asterix stories about the golden sickle, and all that sort of stuff?

JILL PETTIS (NZ Labour—Whanganui) : I will speak only very briefly on the bill because I think it is important we progress its passage through the House as soon as we can, in the interests of everybody.

This first thing I will say is that the conspiracy theories about the bill being shunted up the Order Paper are not true. As one of the Government whips, I regret to advise the conspiracy theorists that while Minister Hobbs may be in charge of the bill, she is not in charge of the Order Paper. She has no control, unfortunately, over where bills appear on the Order Paper.

The select committee listened to the submitters with care and consideration, but I say to some submitters, who may be disappointed in the progress of this bill, that not all select committee members were able to agree with all the points raised by the submitters. But we did listen with interest. This Government is proceeding with caution in the management of new organisms, while preserving opportunities. We are building on the information that was provided by the royal commission’s report, and I have to say that no Government could be expected to exercise more caution than this Government is.

I thank the chair and all the members of the select committee, and thank those who gave advice to the select committee, as we valued the advice and information they provided us with. I say thank you to select committee members, and I commend the bill to the House.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato) : I was pleased to concede to Mr Brian Donnelly, and I acknowledge that he did a very good job as chairman under somewhat challenging conditions. But I want to mention that I wonder whether the Government and Minister Hobbs are protesting a little too much when the Minister talks about a conspiracy theory, because I understand that at the Business Committee meeting yesterday the Government gave absolutely no indication that the bill would be introduced tonight. This is an unprecedented break of protocol that the Labour Government has once again—

Jill Pettis: We didn’t know yesterday.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Well, it is either extremely untidy, or, indeed—[Interruption]—so it is extremely untidy. The Minister admits that it is extremely untidy, and we would certainly go along with that.

This bill is a very important bill. It amends not only the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, but also the Biosecurity Act, the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act, and the Medicines Act. It is a controversial bill, and it requires a measured and considered response. The National Party supports the bill, but with reservations. We intend to add amendments to it.

I must say that while I commend the Hon Brian Donnelly for his chairmanship, I am somewhat appalled that New Zealand First has caved in when it comes to wanting to impose a moratorium. I suggest that it is almost a New Zealand First form of Druidism. I think that is a great pity, because the National Party has consistently supported the major recommendations of the royal commission, and I want to mention once again what the major conclusion was. The royal commission said that New Zealand should keep its options open. It went on to say “but we should proceed carefully, minimising and managing risks. At the same time continuation of the development of conventional farming, organic, and integrated pest management should be facilitated.” Indeed, National has consistently taken the view that we would follow an evidence-based scientific approach to the bill as being absolutely fundamental. We have agreed entirely with the royal commission that continuation of research is critical to New Zealand’s future.

We applaud the fact that low-risk research will be streamlined in the bill, but the Labour Government should have made that happen 2 years ago. Research institutions and universities around the country were calling for that to happen. I put up an amendment on the 2001 amendment bill, but it was rejected by the Government. That has continued to cause extra costs for research organisations around New Zealand. It could have happened, but the Labour Government stopped it, and that is very unfortunate.

One of the very, very negative things about the bill is the fact that the Labour Government has continued to increase considerably the red tape around medium and high-risk research. That literally goes against the Government’s own Biotechnology Taskforce Report and Strategy Report. Undoubtedly it is the Government that has identified biotechnology as one of the key areas that is important for sustaining innovation and growth in New Zealand. After all, back in the 1960s we had an economy and a per capita income that was third-best in the world. We are now wallowing towards the lower half of the OECD, and on the policy settings of this Labour Government we are likely to continue to do so. The Government is cementing that in under this bill in terms of the compliance costs and difficult regulations it has made. The Biotechnology Taskforce stated: “Regulations must be efficient, cost-effective and equal to international best practice and, where appropriate, must be acceptable to our major trading partners. Industry must have a regulatory environment that is transparent and predictable.” It goes on to state: “New Zealand has one of the most comprehensive regulatory regimes in the developed world. However, compliance costs and delays related to public consultation are climbing. The public consultation process requires streamlining to improve cost and time overheads without compromising quality control. … The present system is overly prescriptive and easily drawn out.”

This is what this Labour Government has not addressed in this bill. I refer members to section 38A(2)(e), inserted into the principal Act by clause 18, under which the case by case requirement means that an application for a conditional release approval must include all the possible adverse effects of the organism on the environment. It may be that the judge, in the Mothers Against Genetic Engineering case against AgResearch, came out and said: “Well look, we think this is inappropriate. It is impractical.”, and made a ruling against Mothers Against Genetic Engineering. However, I would have thought that the Government should explicitly make sure that quite ridiculous impositions on research applications like this should not be imposed.

Second, of course, is the full public consultation requirement for all research categories in containment—again, hugely onerous and supported by the Government’s own biotechnology task force, which it has ignored. Thirdly, there are the ministerial call-in powers. In this area, it is quite remarkable how the Government has managed to absolutely entangle the possibilities that could occur from the requirements of the Minister’s call-in powers. Because they are so wide, the Minister may direct that he or she will decide on an application under this Act if the Minister considers that the decision on the application will have significant cultural, economic, environmental, ethical, health, international, or spiritual effects.

It is no wonder that the Environment Risk Management Authority tells us that it can process the science in 6 weeks but it can take 6 months to infinity to process the cultural, spiritual, and ethical areas. We have seen this with the Resource Management Act. Once again, we are seeing this Labour Government imposing such criteria in an area in which its own advisers say it is quite inappropriate. For instance, when we asked the chair of the Bioethics Council whether he knew what the principles of the treaty were, he quite clearly said he did not know. This is an area of great concern.

I want to speak for a moment about the reality of what is likely to happen when the moratorium comes off, because at a “biopharming” conference held at the Royal Society some weeks ago, Dr Bas Walker, head of the Environmental Risk Management Authority, said he knows of no pending applications for commercial release of GE in the near future, and he knew of only a few applications for conditional release. Given the almost absurd hurdles required for consent, and particularly for full commercial release, the bill is, in many respects, a Clayton’s moratorium.

There is no doubt that a moratorium is an extremely blunt instrument, and one should not underestimate the lost opportunities that would have benefited mankind if in the past moratoria had been imposed on medicine, science, and industry. The reality of this new GE law is such that commercial release of GE crops in New Zealand in the near future is remote. However, the Government has not heeded its own task force when it comes to red tape. The bill does not provide for transparency, predictability, or world-best regulatory practice. In fact, with regard to research, the bill is in danger of becoming the biotechnology equivalent of the Resource Management Act.

National intends to amend the somewhat serious and concerning deficiencies that the Labour Government has perpetrated on the quality of this bill.

Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ) : The ACT party gives a qualified approval to this bill. We acknowledge that the Education and Science Committee did a very good job on this bill, but the House might recall that it was the ACT party that at the outset said there was no need for a moratorium in the first place. I appreciate, and others have made the point, that this bill is not actually about uplifting the moratorium. The moratorium was for a fixed period of time. It expires on 29 October, and the Government saw fit to put in place a regulatory regime. But we already had a very, very thorough regulatory regime through the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. In many respects, New Zealand led the world through the 1990s under the National Government, when that legislation was enacted. It needed some fine-tuning, but it certainly did not require, we believe, the 2-year moratorium that was imposed. As we know, the moratorium is not about science; it is about political lobbying. That is all it has been about—political lobbying—and that is very regrettable.

Moratoriums are bad. They are bad in principle. They are political “kick it to touch” instruments. Similarly, the aquacultural moratorium is bad. Moratoriums dry up investment. Innovation goes somewhere else. The world does not stop because a particular jurisdiction decides to stop the clock. That just does not happen. The work carries on. How many top scientists in our biological sciences have left this country? After all, the New Zealand economy is based on our biological systems. Our comparative advantage is good science and good climate. Unfortunately, we have lost some top scientists. They have quietly gone elsewhere. The work carries on, but New Zealand pretends that somehow the clock stops. Be that as it may, the moratorium is about to come off in October with the passage of this legislation. This bill will set the new regime for these matters as we move forward.

We should bear in mind, too, that the royal commission, which sat for a considerable period of time, did a very thorough block of work. The top experts on it heard the evidence of all the people, and the clear recommendation of the commission was that we should embrace GM technology but move ahead with caution. That is a very responsible position. ACT certainly would not argue against that. All science needs to be treated with respect and caution, but we need to embrace science. The Green Party has hung its hat on the whole GM debate, and I am sure that shortly this evening we will hear a very impassioned speech from the Greens on why we should have a moratorium for ever. That is the Green Party’s position. It wants a moratorium for ever, and that would be nonsense. I believe there are other lobby groups who also want a moratorium for ever. That is not the ACT party’s position.

This bill proposes a conditional release situation. I am of the view that, in terms of pest control in this country and of some of the ”biopharming” opportunities—in other words, reducing the dependency on pesticides by the application of GM technology—the risks of pesticides to human health and well-being, and the imposition of trade barriers from other importing nations, are greater than the responsible application of GM technology. Equally, with regard to pests in this country, as we know New Zealand naturally did not have any mammals—

Hon Brian Donnelly: Other than the two bats.

Hon KEN SHIRLEY: The member is quite right—other than the two bats and marine mammals. The scientists tell us that animals such as stoats, weasels, possums—

Ron Mark: You’re speaking about the Labour Party.

Hon KEN SHIRLEY: Indeed, we would need another speech about that, but not at the moment. The best means of control will be biological control and the application of GM technology, which we desperately need in this country to control animals such as ferrets, stoats, and possums. So we must move forward.

Comments have also been made in this debate that organisms closer to the food chain pose a greater risk than medicines. I think the chairman of the select committee made that comment. I disagree with that, because a medicine is injected directly into the body. The food in the alimentary canal is technically outside the body. If we think of the body as a cylinder with a hollow tube through the middle of it, which is the alimentary canal going from the mouth to that other orifice, it is outside the body, relative to injecting something directly into the bloodstream or directly into the body. So this arbitrary difference between medicines and food is a nonsense, in my view. But it is very convenient for many groups to pretend somehow that: “Oh, yes, we must have GM for medicines”, because how can we say that we would deny the application of technology to combat some of those dreadful diseases that can plague us? But it is convenient to say that we will accept GM for medicines but not for food. That is a totally scientifically illogical position, but nevertheless, many people seem to grasp that stance. Perhaps that is the Green position. I do not know. We will hear—

Sue Kedgley: Where is the market for food?

Hon KEN SHIRLEY: The Greens are interrupting to ask where the market is for food. That is a different issue. A lot of people say that GM is fine, but the real reason we should not open things up is that it is the marketing perception that we need rules and regulators in Government to control the public perception.

I actually have more faith in the market than that. I believe that if it is that bad, then it probably will not happen. Certainly, some very restrictive regulatory regimes will be put in place by this bill. There is no question about that. My argument, and the position of the ACT party—and I heard Dr Hutchison make some similar comments—is that there is far too much red tape with this bill, as we would expect from this Government. It has used this issue as an excuse to put in far more red tape and regulatory prescriptive controls than are required.

That red tape comes in all manner of forms. The big one, of course, is consultation. The Labour Party loves consultation. [Interruption] Yes, there is a place for consultation, but there is a point at which consultation debases a democracy. People go round and round in endless consultation. We have seen it with the Local Government Act that this Government ran through Parliament under urgency. That Act is putting massive costs on every local body in this country. There is endless consultation, and we call it participatory democracy. It is nothing of the sort. It is just endless, mindless meetings and the giving of leverage to uninformed people who keep complaining and going round and round in circles. But it seems to be becoming the trademark of this Government, as Mr Darren Hughes knows. Government members love consultation as an excuse to tie things up, put on all the costs imaginable and all the prescriptive regulations, and end up going nowhere. Unfortunately, we have seen all too much of that.

The other comment that has been made is about ministerial call-in. There are wide powers there for a ministerial call-in, and now the Minister can call in an application on cultural grounds. The chairman of the select committee made the point that this is Druidism, but we have seen again from this Government that it is abandoning science and the evidential scientific method, and adopting spiritualism. For some reason, the Minister will call in something. How will we deal with something scientific that is being analysed, and we are trying to evaluate it on spiritual and cultural grounds? That is a nonsense. As the Environmental Risk Management Authority has said, it can process an application in 6 weeks, based on science. But if we are talking about something based on cultural, ethical, or spiritual grounds, then it can be processed into infinity. It could go on for ever. Again, that is the sort of regime that this Labour Government wants to impose on the country. That is absurd, and certainly the ACT party will be opposing those measures as we move through the passage of this legislation.

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) : This is the bill that is supposed to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification, but, so transparently, it does not. This is the bill that, in practice, lifts the moratorium on release of GE, despite what Brian Donnelly says, because even though in law that was done by last year’s legislation, in practice it is being done by this bill. The reason for that is that under the law as it stands now no applications for release would get approval from the Environmental Risk Management Authority because it cannot legally put any conditions on them. So, under the law as it stands, there can be no buffer zones, no codes of practice, and no monitoring; so there would in practice be no release. Instead, any application for release would have to meet the minimum standard set out in section 36 of the Act, which means essentially that such releases offer no greater risks than other organisms already out there. That was the approach taken by the author of the original Act, Simon Upton, and I think that he was right.

The National Party has moved away from that position of caution, and the Labour Party possibly never shared it. So let it be very clear to all members in this House that if they vote for this bill, they will be voting to release genetically engineered crops, animals, and micro-organisms into our environment, our food production, and our exports, for the first time. That is something that is opposed not just by the vast majority of submitters on this bill but by 68 percent of the public, according to polls. I want every MP in the Labour Party to take note that he or she is personally voting to destroy New Zealand’s GE-free, “clean, green” image for ever, against the wishes of the vast majority of Labour voters. I want all Māori and Pacific Island MPs to take responsibility for voting against the wishes of their constituencies. I want all United Future MPs to take personal responsibility for what they are doing, and to stop hiding behind statements that this bill has nothing to do with lifting the moratorium.

This bill does not implement the recommendations of the royal commission, because the Government has rejected many of them. There is no strategy for preserving opportunities—other than opportunities for GE. There is no strategy to protect the right to grow 100 percent GE-free crops. There is no strategy to protect bees from GE contamination. There is no economic analysis that shows that this bill will benefit New Zealand. The genetic engineering of food, plants, and animals to produce pharmaceuticals—thus making them unfit for consumption as food—is to be freely permitted. The research set up at the suggestion of the royal commission to study impacts will not report for years. In all of those ways, the Government has rejected the report of the commission, or, rather, it has accepted the “proceed” bit and rejected the “with caution” bit.

The select committee process was, in my view, a charade, and I felt embarrassed by being part of it—even as a non-voting member. Rigid rules were set whereby submissions that arrived slightly after the due date were rejected, without any attempt even to find out if they had arrived at Parliament but not at the Select Committee Office. Submissions that did not have 20 copies were likewise rejected. The Hon Michael Meacher, the UK Minister for the Environment during a period when that country was intensely involved in discussions about the future of GE, was not given time by the committee, so he was called by Greenpeace as a witness and was basically told off before he had even spoken and accused of a political stunt. We spent several whole days listening to all the rest of the evidence, and there was a lot, but we had only one meeting set down for the committee to consider all the issues raised in the submissions. I managed to get that extended to two meetings, but they were still totally inadequate to consider the serious and well-researched submissions.

The committee never engaged with the scientific issues raised by people like Professor Williams, a geneticist from the University of California, Professor Schubert from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, Associate Professor Wills from the University of Auckland, Dr Sean Weaver from Victoria University, Dr Trussell from the Friends of the Earth in Auckland, and Dr Mann, a biochemist retired from teaching at the Medical School. All of those scientists were trying to tell us there were serious flaws in our understanding of genetic science, which means that, in a generic sense, it is not safe to allow these new organisms outside a contained laboratory.

I actually doubt that anyone on the committee, or any of the advisers, had the necessary background to engage with the issues these submitters were raising, or the quantities of serious, scientific papers they presented us with. Certainly, the issues in those papers were never discussed by the committee. I hope the Government will never again try to claim that its policies on genetic engineering are science-based, when Government members have so blatantly ignored the views of so many qualified scientists.

Nor did the committee take any notice of the big food producers, like Zespri, ENZA, Heinz-Wattie, and Sanitarium Health Food, which told us that their markets do not want GE and that their market access and prices would be damaged by release. No heed was paid to the small fast-growing, niche-market producers that have built their business and profits on New Zealand’s GE-free reputation.

Another group that got no satisfaction, and whose concerns were not dealt with, is local government. We had strong submissions from district councils like Kaipara, Nelson, and Marlborough, from regional councils like Environment BOP and Environment Waikato, and from Local Government New Zealand, on behalf of all the councils. They were concerned about three things: they wanted clarity around their legal rights and responsibilities; they wanted to know that if a release went badly wrong, they would not be liable for clean up, as they are with contaminated sites; and they wanted a voice as to whether GE was used in their communities. On all three counts they have been denied, by the committee and by the Government.

The interface between the Resource Management Act and the Local Government Acts, under which they normally operate, and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, which is amended by this bill, is very unclear. The Local Government Act 2002 charges councils with promoting the well-being of their communities, and creates a high expectation of consultation and responsiveness to the wishes of those communities. “Promoting” is an active word, and where communities have gone to their councils and asked for protection from the risks of GE, councils feel a duty to act, but the law leaves them in total confusion as to how they can act. The Resource Management Act requires them to develop, in consultation with their communities, plans for land use and rules for discharge of contaminants. Does that entitle them, if their communities demand it, to set GE-free zones to protect other growers? The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act provides for a nationwide generic approval process of application for release by an expert body, which is the Environmental Risk Management Authority. The Resource Management Act and the Local Government Act provide for local solutions in keeping with local aspirations, and explicitly recognise that communities can have different needs and different wishes. Councils were asking for clarity in the law, and the select committee and the Government have said that that is just too hard, and have done nothing.

So the law will be decided again by case law, not because the matter never came up when the legislation was passed, but because Parliament has refused to deal with it. It should not be the role of the courts to make law like this, because it will inevitably be the party with the deepest pockets that will be able to mount the best case. The Government is relying on the New Zealand Life Sciences Network and its wealthy overseas industry backers to take a case to the Environment Court to stop any council that tries to implement what its citizens want. Knowing that, most councils will not try, which is exactly the way the Government wants it. But it is too scared of the backlash to legislate over the top of local authorities and take any such role away from them. The cost of establishing case law will be high, and it will be borne by the very people who have been so comprehensively ignored by this whole process.

The committee made a decision early on not to listen to arguments that the release of GE was a good or a bad thing, yet that is exactly what this bill is about—putting in place the conditions that allow that release. It was embarrassing to watch the paranoia of members who feared there would be violent protests at our meetings, and who asked for special protection at those meetings. Of course, there was never any threat, because although people out there were, and are, very angry at being ignored by the Government and by the committee, people who are giving up their own time and money to protect New Zealand’s reputation, environment, health, and economy from the risks of GE do not resort to violence.

So the bill is back in the House having been changed hardly at all, in spite of the many days of hearings and the quality of the evidence presented. All those who participated in this charade will be accountable for that.

BERNIE OGILVY (United Future) : It is with pleasure that I speak today to voice United Future’s support for the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill. I thank the chairperson, Brian Donnelly, my other colleagues on the Education and Science Committee, and the submitters who came forth at their own cost and, in sincerity, presented whatever their issues were and listened to the wide range of submissions. This bill represents a victory of common sense and science over dogma and ideology. It presents an opportunity for New Zealand to move forward, both scientifically and economically, and to embrace the opportunities presented by rapid advances in the biological sciences.

The Report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification stated: “GM has been used freely in New Zealand for more than a decade as a research tool, for medical purposes and for food ingredients. It holds exciting promise, not only for conquering diseases, eliminating pests, and contributing to the knowledge economy, but for enhancing the international competitiveness of the primary industries so important to our country’s economic well-being.” That was stated before anything began. That would mean fewer pesticides, fewer insecticides, less use of antibiotics in farm animals, such as pigs and poultry, and more production per unit of land under cultivation. It all sounds like good environmental and economic sense to me.

However, as I am sure almost everyone would agree, new technology such as this must be applied cautiously and safely. The bill puts a legislative and regulatory framework in place that enables United Future to feel comfortable with the expiration of the moratorium on application for commercial release of genetically modified organisms. I reiterate at this point that although United Future is comfortable with the lifting of the moratorium, the moratorium itself is set to lift automatically on 29 October this year. That was set down by the amendments to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act in 2002. That was the purpose, by the way, of giving the Government time to implement the recommendations of the royal commission. I believe that was a sensible step, particularly in view of the fears among some sectors of the public about the possible consequences of using this new technology.

But a further extension of the moratorium cannot, in any convincing way, be justified. If the Government decided to extend the moratorium, it would need to introduce a whole new piece of legislation and to get that through Parliament before the end of October. That would be the Government’s prerogative, and the Government’s prerogative only. It is our view that in the absence of proven danger to public health or the environment, such a course of action would be a disaster for New Zealand’s scientific community, for the agricultural sector, and, by implication, for the whole economy. Of course, no such evidence of danger exists. Therefore, I believethere is only one party in Parliament that would support such a detrimental backwards step.

Even in the absence of this bill, the royal commission itself found that New Zealand’s basic regulatory framework and the key institutions were up to the job of safely addressing the application of GM technology in New Zealand. Members should remember that the royal commission study is probably one of the most extensive inquiries ever to be undertaken into the application of GM technology anywhere in the world. Even then, it most certainly did not recommend the imposition of any sort of moratorium. However, in the interests of caution, public safety, environmental protection, and the importance of New Zealand’s “clean, green” image for the marketing of our exports, the royal commission did make a series of recommendations that focused on enhancing the existing regulatory framework and the institutions even further. It did not seek to throw everything out and start again, or to take drastic steps to bring existing frameworks up to some new, impossible standard. It simply made suggestions for improvements based on sound science to make an already robust regime even safer. That is what the bill is all about. The New Organisms and Other Matters Bill implements the sensible, moderate recommendations of the royal commission, so we can be absolutely sure that our regulatory framework and institutions are as good as we can make them before the genetic modification moratorium is lifted next month.

Another advantage of this bill, besides its focus on safety, is that it takes other aspects of GM technology into account, such as the workability of the regulations that businesses will have to comply with, so that GM technology can be used in practice as well as in theory. This is important because the economic benefits for our country are potentially huge. Despite claims to the contrary, there is no concrete evidence that lifting the moratorium in October will harm New Zealand’s exports. Certainly, our exports showed no signs of suffering from the absence of a GM moratorium in the days before the start of the moratorium and the royal commission inquiry.

United Future continues to hold with the idea that the economic effect of lifting the GM moratorium will be a positive one, despite the huge amount of misinformation and the substandard analysis distributed by the anti-GE lobby in an effort to convince people that the opposite is true. One commonly cited example of this effort is a survey that reportedly demonstrates that a large proportion of consumers in New Zealand’s main export markets said they would cease buying New Zealand food products if GM products were released in this country. As my colleague Larry Baldock said in the first reading speech to this bill, a recently released Treasury paper on economic impacts of GM makes the point that overseas consumers are unlikely to base their purchase decisions on whether a country’s products of origin are GE-free. It has nothing to do with it. In fact, when it is applied to New Zealand, the reality is that most people will make their decision on the basis of price, not origin of any sort—whether it is GE or non-GE.

It is also interesting to note some of the groups calling for an extension of the moratorium claim that such an extension would limit New Zealand’s economic opportunities, because it may be 3 to 5 years before any genetically modified crop developed in New Zealand is commercialised anyway. If this does turn out to be the case, then the lifting of the moratorium now will not have any practical effect for several years anyway. But, if something does end up being ready for development before then—and these things can happen—it would be a shame to see such an opportunity go begging. Scientists are not lost overseas when the regulatory regime necessary for such developments to proceed safely is already in place.

It is important symbolically for potential future investors that any legal roadblocks are removed as soon as is safely possible. This new bill satisfies United Future’s policy of having the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification in place before the lifting of the moratorium. Now it is time for New Zealand to continue moving forward, safely and cautiously, but forward, nevertheless.

Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY (NZ Labour) : I rise to support this bill. I had the opportunity to sit in the Education and Science Committee, which considered this bill, and, first of all, I would like to pay my tribute to Brian Donnelly, the chairman, who very ably chaired it. We had very good and very wide discussions all over the country, and I am delighted at the way he chaired those meetings. Although I do not necessarily agree with a lot of New Zealand First policies, I certainly do have a lot of respect for Mr Donnelly.

I do disagree with those who find fault with the process we have gone through. I have had the opportunity to travel quite widely around the world, and I have heard the discussions in the US and Europe about GE. I believe that through the royal commission, and now this bill, we in this country have probably had more wide-ranging discussions on this issue than anywhere that I am aware of.

This bill is about streamlining the approval process for the introduction of conditional release of genetically modified organisms in this country. Plant breeding—breeding new crops and seeds—is nothing new. We have been involved in developing plants and commercial breeding for many years. Also, we have been using tissue culture and embryo culture technologies for many years. Now we have come to genetic and molecular engineering, and I believe that this technology will be very useful for our country. I fully support this bill.

SIMON POWER (NZ National—Rangitikei) : I want to make some comments about the passage of this bill. I did not find this an easy process, at all. I found the process and the content of the bill difficult, and there are two reasons for that. One reason is that I do not profess to be a scientist, and it took some time for me, as a member of the select committee, to get my head around some of the case by case work and some of the more technical terms in the bill. Also, if we were absolutely honest about it, this is a pretty delicate issue, in the sense that in many ways it ranges across what would traditionally be seen as the political spectrum. I know, for example, that friends of mine who are, shall we say, pretty right wing, who would consider the ACT party to have socialist leanings on some of its economic policy, nevertheless still have very strong views about the GE issue. It is one of those issues that if we deal with the second reading and the Committee stage in a flippant way, then we do not do credit to the seriousness with which this issue should be taken.

I do believe that it is an issue that, to be fair, particularly young people think pretty seriously about, and they have not found it a particularly easy topic to deal with. Whilst they understand the importance of the economic growth arguments, and the abilities of an economy and a country to—as Brian Donnelly would say—move forward, there is still a great deal of scepticism, and I have to say that that is represented not just by the Green Party. It is an issue that we will not see solved satisfactorily in my political lifetime.

I pay tribute to Brian Donnelly, who did a very good job chairing the select committee. It was not always easy, actually. We had our moments, but I do think Brian Donnelly did a very good job.

I also want to pay a small tribute to my colleague Dr Paul Hutchison, who took the lead for the National Party on the select committee and spent many hours sitting on the select committee when I was unable to. I thank him for the time he put in on behalf of our caucus.

As I say, it is a very, very delicate issue. Once the select committee had begun the process of consideration, there were still two or three issues that, I believe, were not dealt with well. Although National will continue to support the passage of the bill, Dr Hutchison and I will propose a number of amendments during the Committee stage. I draw the attention of the House to two or three of those issues, just to signal to the House and to the Minister some of the issues that we have concerns with. I know that this issue was raised briefly by the Hon Brian Donnelly, and I refer to the way in which local government will implement the GE-free zones. The way in which Government members on the select committee reported on that issue in the commentary on the bill, on page 5, does not leave local government, in my view, any the wiser about what it has to do. There is a problem when, even today, I see a newspaper report stating that one councillor made a bid today to have Horizons MW—formerly the Manawatu-Wanganui Regional Council—endorse extending a moratorium on GM, and declaring part of that catchment a GE-free area. This is not going to be an easy hurdle for local government to come to terms with.

One thing that I hope I have said consistently in this House when legislation like this is introduced is that it is the job of Parliament to inject certainty into the law. The last thing I want to see—and I am sure that this is the last thing members on both sides of the House, bar a few in the Government, want to see—is a whole lot of judicial activism ignited on these points. That is not going to help anybody. I believe that there is still much work to do on the issue of local government and its role in respect of creating GE-free zones, or allegedly trying to do that—depending on whether the courts decide in the end that it has the power to do that. Government members seem completely convinced that that is not going to be a difficulty, but I still have some way to go on that.

I do want to raise two or three further points. The first is in respect of the liabilities and penalties under the bill. Members of the Education and Science Committee will know that that is something I took a particular interest in. We believe that the level of fines proposed in the legislation is extremely prohibitive and high. We also note that officials formed the view very early—and this is quite an important point—that, from a liability perspective, there was nothing sufficiently different about GE to justify a liability regime that was different in principle from those applied in other scenarios. That is an extraordinarily powerful piece of advice from officials.

As members of the select committee will know, that is why I was particularly concerned about section 124B(3) in clause 48. The bill that originally came before the select committee stated that the court must not make the pecuniary penalty order if it is satisfied that the person did not know, and could not reasonably have known, of the breach. What the select committee decided to do was to substantially alter the level of the burden on the applicant, which I think is wrong. The clause now says that the court must not make the order if the person satisfies the court that he or she did not know, and could not reasonably have known, of the breach. That shifts the burden substantially, from having the court itself making a determination about the circumstances in which that alleged breach occurred, to requiring the individual or company in breach to prove it. That is quite a substantial hurdle to jump, and quite a different burden from what would ordinarily be imposed, which we think is odd, given the officials’ advice that there was very little to justify a different liability regime.

I just want to add to the concerns raised by Ken Shirley and the Hon Brian Donnelly about the Minister’s call-in powers. That stuff is just nuts—that is the best way I can describe it. It is just lunatic-fringe stuff. The Minister will decide an application if he or she considers that the decision will have significant cultural, economic, environmental, ethical, health, international, or spiritual effects. With the greatest of respect to the current Minister, I say that she may be capable of making that determination, but future Ministers may not be. As a lawyer, when I look at a clause like that, I see one thing: big cash. Lawyers are going to make a fortune out of that sort of clause.

I will just go back to what I said two or three moments ago, which is this. It is the responsibility of Parliament to pass certain and unambiguous law. What that clause is doing is simply opening the floodgates for a massive range of applications and discretions, and a huge new lawyers’ area of expertise. Frankly, when I look at this clause, I can hear the lawyers out there heading down to the Mercedes dealers to close the deal on Monday morning. It is a seriously ambiguous and uncertain clause, and it will cause all sorts of difficulties for whoever sits in that ministerial seat.

I conclude by saying that National will be introducing amendments during the Committee stage. I give my thanks again to fellow members of the select committee. We look forward to a thorough investigation of the bill, clause by clause, during the Committee stage.