Growing pains: Communicating Corngate

By KEVIN TAYLOR

In late 2000 the Government faced embarrassment when tests of imported corn seed revealed it was possibly contaminated with genetically modified material.

The way the issue was handled shows how the media can be manipulated, says Wellington author Nicky Hager, whose book Seeds of Distrust alleged the Government attempted a cover-up.

On December 19, 2000, Environment Minister Marian Hobbs held a press conference to announce "new safeguards" against the introduction of GM seed. A Press Association report and a brief radio item followed, but the implications were not picked up.

It was only during the heat of the 2002 election campaign that Hager's book was released and it became clear what had happened 18 months earlier.

Hager claims the Government succeeded in hiding the real story behind a dull-sounding import procedure announcement at one of the busiest times of the year for parliamentary journalists.

Hobbs and the Government have vehemently denied any cover-up.

But Hager still believes the announcement was an artful example of how careful, selective, partial release of information is "just another way of not telling the truth".

Whatever the Government's motives, Hager is correct in saying the real news was buried.

The statement's first paragraph droned: "New measures are being developed by the Government to guard against the inadvertent introduction of genetically modified seed, the Minister for the Environment and Biosecurity, Marian Hobbs, announced today."

The fifth paragraph contained the revelation. It read that seed importers had "recently alerted the Environmental Risk Management Authority and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to the possibility that some imported conventional sweetcorn seed might contain traces of genetically modified material".

The media missed its significance, and the Government did nothing to attract any further attention.