National: GM bill will hurt industry

By KEVIN TAYLOR

A bill placing new controls on genetic modification work goes against the Government's aim of fostering the biotechnology sector, says the National Party.

National MP Annabel Young made the claim after a parliamentary committee reported last Thursday on the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Genetically Modified Organisms) Amendment Bill.

The bill gives effect to the Government's GM policy decisions announced last October, including a two-year moratorium on the commercial release of GM organisms.

Annabel Young said the bill was anti-biotechnology and innovation, and imposed new costs and delays on the industry.

It would make it harder for firms to get projects approved, and harder to get money for them.

Life Sciences Network chairman Dr William Rolleston said the network, made up of science and business interests, could live with the bill, but only because more law changes were on the way.

The moratorium and other changes were political and not based on valid science, but two more law changes were promised that would cut red tape around Environmental Risk Management Agency (Erma) applications.



Research, Science and Technology Minister Pete Hodgson said the bill struck the right balance between preserving opportunities in biotechnology and assuring public and environmental safety.

The committee's changes had clarified the bill and would not impose extra compliance costs on researchers.

The Government would make more changes to the law to cut compliance costs for approval of low-risk research involving GM organisms, often done in secure laboratories.

But Annabel Young said the bill gave the biotech industry a warning that the Government did not understand the sector.

Changes to the bill made it clearer what had to be cleaned up at GM field trial sites. Now "heritable material" (such as spores, gametes and seeds) had to be cleaned up.

But Annabel Young said the bill also gave Erma the power to require an even more intensive clean-up of all genetic material from a GM site.

That would allow Erma to veto a GM project by imposing an impossibly strict clean-up regime.

Act and National MPs on the committee opposed the bill.

nzherald.co.nz/ge

Report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification

GE lessons from Britain

GE links

GE glossary