Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - New Zealand GMO free - so far

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Jill Taylor Bussiere" <jdt AT itol.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: New Zealand GMO free - so far
  • Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 06:58:06 -0500


A New Zealand friend writes:
A little background. There have been _no_ laws keeping live genetically
modified organisms (GMOs) out of NZ, up until the amendment bill about to be
passed into law. This bill was a result of

(1) the NZ Greens persuading the Labour-Alliance coalition government to
run a Royal Commission into the use of genetic engineering in New Zealand ,
and

(2) one of the trade-offs the Greens got for their support for the minority
coalition (on key bills only), was that the government bring in a 2-year
moratorium on release of GMOs into the environment (in the face of lobbying
by the fairly strong genetic engineering industry here). New Zealand has a
Proportional Representational system, like all of the democracies except the
US, Great Britain and Canada, so, in order to form a majority in the
government, the Labour Alliance needed the Greens - thus, even though the
Greens only have 5% of the New Zealand vote, they do have some influence.
If the Greens withdrawal their support of the LabourAlliance coalition,
there will not be enough support to form a majority within that coalition,
and another will have to be formed.

· The current bill is the result. However, it includes an _automatic_
freedom to carry out at least field-trials, in October next year. The Greens
are taking a stand.

http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/speech5244.html , Jeanette Fitzsimons'
speech in the Parliamentary debate, starts:


HASNO (Genetically Modified Organisms) Amendment Bill Second Reading
Jeanette Fitzsimons MP, Green Party co-leader

3rd May 2002

This Bill was introduced last year to pull the wool over the eyes of New
Zealanders. It pretends to be responding to the huge numbers of people who
do not want GMOs in their food or our environment - the 11,000 who made
submissions to that effect to the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification;
the 15,000 who marched down Queen St in the rain last Spring; and the many
who marched and rallied in other centres throughout the country. It also pre
tends to be responding to the leading scientists who have given evidence
that the technology is too unstable, too unpredictable and too dangerous to
be allowed outside the laboratory.

But this Bill trivialises the efforts of those people because it is based
neither on science nor on logic.

The Royal Commission said we needed to know a lot more before we released
any GE organisms outside the laboratory. It said we especially needed to
know more about effects on soils and on native ecosystems. It said we needed
to know more about horizontal gene transfer. The Govt has set up research
programmes to answer some of those questions and to look at the economic
impact of losing our GE Free status in overseas markets. The moratorium
imposed by this bill is supposedly to hold the line on release while that
research takes place. This much makes logical sense.

But to show how much it cares about careful science or proper research, the
Government is legislating to lift the moratorium automatically next year,
regardless of whether the research has produced any results or what those
results show.

Many submitters told the Finance and Expenditure Committee considering the
Bill that the expiry of the moratorium woiuld destroy the greatest advantage
we have for marketing our primary produce. But the clause is still there
because this is only a political moratorium, designed to reassure a very
concerned public until after the next election.

When it does expire, the Government plans to have in place legislation to
allow "conditional release" so that GE farms can be separated from GE Free
farms by buffer zones, so that bees can be trained to distinguish between GE
and non GE crops, and wind, birds, vehicles, animals and farm workers are
forbidden to move pollen and seed around.

If we needed any more evidence that co-existence of GE and non-GE crops
cannot work, we had it last week when the Mexican Government confirmed at
the meeting in the Hague on the Biosafety Protocol that GE contamination of
both wild and crop corn has been found throughout that country at 95% of the
sites tested, despite a ban on growing it during the last four years. This
is not co-existence; that is replacement of natural varieties with gene
tampered varieties whose long-term future and effects are still unknown.

Co-existence cannot work. Growers throughout the country know that and will
rise up in rebellion if the Government tries it.
...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

· Yesterday, The Greens (7 of 120 MPs) walked out to show their objection.

· Today, the headline item on the NZ Greens; website:
http://www.greens.org.nz/
is:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
GE is bottom line: http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR5300.html

Jeanette announced today that the Greens will not support any future
Government that lifts the moratorium on the release of genetically
engineered organisms. Labour currently plan to lift the moratorium next
October. Jeanette's speech:
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/speech5301.html spells out the arguments
in full.
Sent on by Jill







  • New Zealand GMO free - so far, Jill Taylor Bussiere, 05/23/2002

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page