Government plan to keep GE foes on side

By FRANCESCA MOLD, VERNON SMALL and ANNE BESTON

EXCLUSIVE - The Government is planning a two-year compulsory freeze on GE field trials to appease the Green Party and head off a threatened revolt by its own Maori MPs.

The Maori MPs met on Tuesday night to discuss their concerns that senior ministers were leaning towards decisions in line with the report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification.

The Government is to announce its decision by October 30.

A committee of senior ministers will consider the issue again next Thursday and the Cabinet is likely to approve the decision on October 29.

Sources last night said Prime Minister Helen Clark was proposing continuing the present moratorium for two more years as a compromise between the Maori MPs and ministers who favour controlled GM releases.

They include Agriculture Minister Jim Sutton, Research, Science and Technology Minister Pete Hodgson and Finance Minister Michael Cullen.

The two-year extension would give the Government time to continue investigations recommended by the royal commission in July.

These include considering whether GM researchers should bear the liability for any damage caused by their experiments.

It would also give the Green Party a boost for next year's election, enabling them to argue that only a strong Green presence in Parliament would preserve the moratorium.

The Maori MPs have expressed cultural and religious fears about the mixing of human cells across species, the status of the Treaty of Waitangi and the ability to control field trials.

Helen Clark said a wait of about two years would protect New Zealand's present status without impeding scientific progress.

The Green Party met ministers on Tuesday night, and are understood to have made it clear their support for the Government was at stake.

"Clearly our constituents could not tolerate confidence for a Government that took us down the GE road," Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said yesterday.

The Greens are keen to see a moratorium put into law to avoid the uncertainty of ministerial discretion or a voluntary industry ban.

They say this uncertainty prevents exporters tapping into the economic advantage of New Zealand being GM free.

The National Party has offered to free the Government from its reliance on the Greens if it decides to implement the commission recommendations, which support field trials of GM crops under strict controls and dismiss a GM-free New Zealand as probably impractical.

National's environment spokesman, Nick Smith, said the party was willing to "work constructively" with the Government to prevent a continued ban on gene research outside the laboratory.

Meanwhile, some scientists are worried that the Environmental Risk Management Authority - the watchdog set up to control gene research - is preparing the ground for stricter GM controls before the Government has made its decision.

"Erma seems to be getting in quickly to soften us up for the Government's decision on the commission's report," said HortResearch science manager Dr John Shaw.

The new guidelines, sent to research organisations this month and issued under last year's amendment to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, focus on extra monitoring of gene experiments and the use of buffer zones between GM and non-GM crops.

Erma communications manager Julie Watson said the letter was "informal" and told scientists applying to do gene experiments what compliance criteria they could expect.

nzherald.co.nz/ge

Report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification

GE lessons from Britain

GE links

GE glossary