Genetically modified electioneering

By ANNE BESTON

Movie stars and rock singers have a chequered history when wading into the bear-pit of issue politics, but recruiting actor Sam Neill into a new GM lobby group must have been a happy moment for the organisers.

And while the Jurassic Park star said he regretted that genetic modification had become "politicised" in the past few weeks, the timing of the group's launch was impeccable - bang in the middle of an election campaign with GM hogging the limelight.

The innocuous-sounding "Sustainability Council" - which also has squash champ Susan Devoy and former Federated Farmers president-turned-organic-farmer Sir Peter Elworthy as members - called this week for a further slowdown on GM.

It is pushing for the two-year moratorium on commercial release of GM products, due to expire in October next year, to be extended for at least five years, or until GM is proved safe.

Like the almost one in four New Zealanders that a Herald-DigiPoll survey last month found to favour a complete ban, Neill said he was not convinced by the new technology.

"My feeling is that this is the most serious issue we face in New Zealand today," he told the launch in a videotaped address. "It seems to me to be an even more serious issue than the nuclear-free debate we had 20 years ago."

GM presents a particular challenge for voters: it's complex enough, even without added confusion from politicians staging ultimatums and backdowns.

For instance, last year the influential science journal Nature reported that banned GM corn had been found in Mexico, which suggested GM contamination of normal crops.

The magazine soon withdrew the report and cast doubts on the science behind it, yet a Mexican official later confirmed the contamination.

To add to the difficulty, in New Zealand we have managed to enmesh the issue in a legislative web that most voters probably find hard to untangle.

The story so far, then: late last year, after the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification reported, the Labour-Alliance Coalition made a decision based on its findings.

Legislation was passed imposing stricter controls on scientific field trials of GM organisms through the Environmental Risk Management Authority, an independent body set up to regulate genetic science, and putting a temporary ban on any commercial release of GM organisms.

Then the Greens walked out during Parliament's last term, saying they would not support the Government on key confidence and supply votes if the moratorium was lifted in October next year. That would potentially bring down the Government and force another election.

The ultimatum led to a round of political gamesmanship which shows no signs of ending.

Labour knows that if it gets an outright majority on July 27, the Greens would be rendered helpless to stop the moratorium ending.

But the Greens are banking on the high level of concern over GM to stop Labour's triumphant march to power. The party's latest polling figures - nudging 9 per cent in the latest Herald-DigiPoll and 11 per cent in last night's TV3 poll - suggest their stand is working.

The escalating slanging match even prompted almost-unheard-of behaviour from politicians midweek - the backdown. First National leader Bill English appeared to be wavering on his party's stand that the two-year moratorium be lifted in October next year.

Once that was cleared up with English back solidly on-message, Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons suddenly warned that the Greens might refuse to form a Government with Labour after the election, rather than wait to pull the plug by withdrawing key confidence and supply votes when the moratorium ends.

She rapidly backed down when questioned further, saying she had simply been musing out loud.

But when the political name-calling dies down, will GM really change many people's votes this election? And does it have the same potential to cross party lines as the nuclear ships ban of the 1980s, which began as a left-wing policy but became so entrenched that National was eventually forced to adopt it?

The nuclear comparison has already been raised by other commentators, apart from Neill. GM has certainly stirred passionate debate - the 10,000-strong march down Queen St on the issue last August took many by surprise.

The Greens' soaring poll ratings suggest it also matters strongly to a significant minority of people, possibly enough to influence the shape of the next Government.

Whether it ranks alongside the traditional big issues that determine elections is another question.

In tomorrow's Weekend Herald, reporter Simon Collins begins a series on what issues matter most to New Zealanders in this election, based on more than 600 face-to-face interviews across the country.

Collins found that, overall, voters put the economy, jobs, crime, health and education higher on their priority list than GM.

But his one-man survey supports the theory that some peoplewill decide their vote on GMas a single issue - and theGreens will reap the benefits.

"I don't like what the Labour Party is doing with the GE thing," said retired Christchurch shorthand-typist Jill Saunders, who plans to vote Green as a result.

"I don't mind enclosed trials, but not scattered about."

Alison, a retired woman in Palmerston North, described herself as a National voter but said the party was "a bunch of wusses" that wouldn't be getting her vote this time.

"The party vote I think I might give to the Greens. I'm really concerned about this GM business."

But others felt GM fears had been overplayed and were receptive to Labour's tactical appeal to its usual political enemies.

"I'm traditionally a National voter but it might be a wasted vote," said Gerald Meger, 40, a farmer of Waimate, in South Canterbury.

"There is some talk of voting Labour to cut the Greens out, and as a farmer I'm quite conscious of that. Their influence in the GE debate has been particularly one sided.

"I think if we don't go down that particular road, a lot of our competing countries will. I'm considering voting Labour for that reason."

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