Greens whip up GE fears

1.00pm

Green Party leaders drummed up anti-genetic engineering (GE) support at their party's annual conference today, warning of dire consequences when the Government lifts the moratorium on the release of GE crops and animals in October.

"It is only a matter of time until one of those unpredictable products causes an environmental and economic disaster," co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said.

"There will be massive demonstrations of public outrage when October comes."

The Greens withdrew confidence from the Government before the last election when it refused to extend the moratorium and Ms Fitzsimons said the position would be maintained.

"On this issue we are not consulted and do not expect to be," she told about 150 delegates at Lake Karapiro.

"We give no quarter and we expect none."

The party's other co-leader, Rod Donald, said the Government's "intransigence" was the reason the Greens did not have a closer relationship with Labour.

"There is growing evidence that New Zealand should stay GE-free," he said.

"Our markets don't want GE food, the negative impact of losing our clean green status could be significant and contamination of non-GE crops is inevitable."

However, they both gave strong signals that the party's co-operation agreement with the Government would remain intact after October.

The eight Green MPs would remain an independent force in Parliament and their "close working relationship" with the Government would not change, Ms Fitzsimons said.

Mr Donald said the Greens would do everything they could to stop the moratorium being lifted, but he added: "The bottom line is that, despite our differences, we would still rather Labour lead the next government than National, ACT or New Zealand First."

He said robust debate was needed within the party to decide what its attitude should be in the lead-up to the next election.

Mr Donald told delegates the party now had 4000 members, 1500 more than three years ago.

- NZPA