Anti-GM protesters manage to drop half the plot

By RUTH BERRY political reporter

Anti-GM protesters targeted a Labour Party caucus meeting at Premier House yesterday, intending to block the entrances to the Prime Minister's Wellington residence.

The Greenpeace protesters had planned to dump three tonnes of soil outside the gate of the main entrance and a further tonne at another gate. The latter succeeded but the main dump was stopped after talks between police and the truck driver.

Labour MPs involved in the second of a two-day retreat were oblivious.

Greenpeace spokeswoman Annette Cotter said the group of 10 protesters had wanted to send the Government a message: "Don't soil our international reputation by lifting the moratorium".

The moratorium on the commercial release of modified organisms will be lifted at the end of this month.

The protest is the second recent attempt to grab headlines.

Last month members of Mothers Against Genetic Engineering were thrown out of Parliament after displaying their pink bras.

Meanwhile, National MP Paul Hutchison said more "Corngate" material released by the Ministry for the Environment yesterday raised further questions about Prime Minister Helen Clark's claims that all information would be released.

The papers, which did not appear to contain new information, were released in response to an official information request by National. Ministry chief executive Barry Carbon noted "the dates for which you request information are those after the dates of the major information release overseen by my ministry".

He was referring to the huge information dump on the issue ordered by Helen Clark after the release of Nicky Hager's book Seeds of Distrust accused the Government of a cover-up last year.