Dialogue: Let science off the leash

New Zealand's unique opportunity to benefit from bio-science is being squandered, argues COLIN HARVEY*.

The Government has just created another piece of legislation that will restrict scientific innovation.

The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act follows a host of other acts and commissions that are causing a flight of biological science from this country.

New Zealand, like a rookie surfie, is missing the knowledge wave.

Never before in our history have we had such an advantage as a place in the biomedical world for innovation.

We are one of the few places which can be classified free from prion diseases such as BSE. And we have a history of being free from many other exotic diseases, not the least being foot and mouth.

Our standards of science are world class and we have the advantage of English as our first tongue.

But our politicians, with laws such as the HSNO Act, are squandering this advantage.

It is under this act that the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) operates.

Inevitably, further restrictions will be imposed on the scientific endeavours of enterprising New Zealanders.



Once again, as with the Resource Management Act, we have introduced laws that are more restrictive than those of our major trading partner Australia.

This latest effort will give the Australians a significant competitive advantage in attracting our most innovative scientists.

While having the good intentions of simplifying the law on hazardous substances, the new law breaks ground in its definition of a hazardous substance.

While the rest of the world concentrates on approving new active compounds, our laws extend the definition of new hazardous substances to include any new way of presenting, or formulating, old compounds.

And for the first time it extends the definition of environmental toxins to cover any biocide, thereby dragging into its ambit a wide range of antibiotics and parasiticides which have no historical evidence of toxicity.

The extent of the new law means that most biomedical companies will have to seek Erma's approval for the smallest change, even at an experimental stage.

This is not required in Australia.

The difference has already led to a flight of scientific work across the Tasman with some companies, such as Fernz, shifting their base and contracting work outside New Zealand. The consequences were clearly shown in the recent Competitive Auckland survey, where Auckland's progress was found to lag equivalent cities such as Vancouver.

Many of us involved in developing new ways to improve food and medicines can only wonder how the political sway of a few can decide benefits for so many.

The threat of food residues and genetically modified organisms is, in reality, but a ghost compared with the lack of food in the world and the starvation of children.

Even in our own society, deaths due to poor nutrition and bacterial contamination have a more significant influence on the health of our nation.

Yet we spend billions of dollars protecting people from these ghosts and forgo even more in lost opportunities because of how their effects are perceived.

While the quality of our mothers' milk reaches international records and our life span increases, there are sectors of our population who believe, against all evidence, that these ghost agents are affecting us.

The reality is that most New Zealanders are a thousand times more likely to get cancer from coffee or die from food poisoning than from the effects of pesticides or genetically modified organisms.

We can make a unique contribution to the world's health.

We are one of the few nations able to safely produce biomedical products from animals that can be accepted in all international markets.

Australia has many of the same advantages. But unlike us, it has ensured its systems of controls and laws fit international convention.

So it is not surprising that many scientific innovators see Australia as an easier place to do business.

Even New Zealand companies find it easier to test and evaluate products across the Tasman than locally, leading to a shift in scientific endeavour.

During the past five years, industry has worked closely with the Ministry of Environment to try and produce a practical set of laws and regulations.

While many of the most bizarre original proposals have been modified, the final act and regulations implement many internationally new controls, definitions and levels of hazardous substances.

This is not only adding to compliance costs but restricting innovation.

The testing and development of even the smallest change to existing substances is confined narrowly to a four-walled laboratory.

Because much of the innovative work done in this country involves animals and plants, any practical testing requires expensive approvals.

Overseas and local companies can shift this work to Australia, where the approval of the original compound allows the freedom to develop alternatives.

Even new active molecules are not required to meet a wide range of international definitions.

Unfortunately, the HSNO Act is not an isolated development, following as it does the controls on new developments imposed by the RMA, the Genetically Modified Organisms Commission and the length of time and cost to get any approvals.

Combined with the envy tax for higher earners, it produces an environment that drives biomedical science industries from our shore.

No amount of new venture capital, or technology grants, will overcome an environment that is so negative to innovation.

If our Government is serious about using our natural advantages to catch the knowledge wave, it is time it addressed these basic issues.

* Colin Harvey is managing director of Ancare New Zealand and a director of several other R&D-based companies. He is also chairman of two industry groups, NZ Agritech and the Animal Remedy and Plant Protectant Association.

Feature: Dialogue on business

Features:

* The jobs challenge

* Common core values

* href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?reportID=57032">The knowledge society

Official website:

Catching the Knowledge Wave