NZ Labour sinks GE bill

June 2, 1999
Issue 

By Russel Norman

AUCKLAND — Legislation to establish a royal commission into genetic engineering and to place a moratorium on genetic engineering field trials and commercial genetically engineered production has been rejected by the New Zealand parliament with the support of the Labour Party. The bill, sponsored by NZ Alliance MP Phillida Bunkle, was rejected before it could go to a select committee where backbench MPs could take public submissions.

Labour argued that the bill's moratorium on "field trials" would jeopardise bio-medical research. However, the definition of field trials could have been refined to allow bio-medical research to proceed.

Labour's claim to support a royal commission but not the moratorium reflects the strategy being pursued by the biotechnology transnationals (with the tacit support of the National Party-led NZ government) which is to swamp the market with genetically engineered products and then claim it is too late to change things.

A royal commission is now out of the question because of the time required to introduce an amended bill before the next national election, due by early December.

Parliament's decision is probably the result of the direct pressure being applied by the US biotechnology industry. Lobbyists from the genetic engineering giant Monsanto have been active in Wellington and the US ambassador to NZ has made it clear that genetic engineering is a "free trade" issue.

A visiting scientist who spoke out against genetic engineering had her job threatened when she returned home to the US and Green MP Jeanette Fitzsimons, a leader of the anti-genetic engineering campaign, has been threatened with legal action by the PR company Communications Trumps for exposing its attempts to cover up malformed genetically engineered salmon. Media covering the story have been forced to apologise.

There is a growing campaign here against genetic engineering. The Wild Greens, the direct action wing of the Green Party, pulled up an experimental Canterbury potato crop into which claw toad genes had been inserted and there have been well-attended public meetings in all centres.

Supermarkets have been the target of many protest actions around the country against the lack of labelling of genetically engineered foods. Activists' recent efforts to label such foods resulted in three arrests in Auckland. Labelling is being strongly resisted by the genetic engineering corporations because NZ consumers are strongly in favour of it, indicating that they would not buy food they knew to be genetically engineered.

So far, there has been no commercial genetically engineered crop production in NZ. Just as Monsanto announced it would apply to the regulatory authorities to grow genetically engineered canola, the escape of Roundup-resistant genes from genetically engineered canola was exposed in Europe.

The issue has strained Labour-Alliance relations, though nowhere near enough yet to threaten a coalition agreement after the election. The Greens have maintained that, if they are re-elected, they would stay out of such a government.

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