Posted 09th August 2001

M Green For Stop GM Food
by Jeanette Fitzsimons

M Thank you for your message of outrage at the report of the RoyalCommission on GM and your support for the Greens' position.The Green members of Parliament share the outrage and concern felt by many New Zealanders and we understand the frustration about how to give voice to these concerns.The GM report has clearly put out a huge challenge to the Greens and other supporters of a GE-Free NZ. The Green Caucus is actively developing its strategy for dealing with this challenge.

The first couple of days for me were fully occupied with analysing the very long report, doing 5 live TV interviews and countless more with radio and newspapers to point out to the public how weak the report is and what a disaster releasing GE organisms would be for NZ. I also spoke in the urgent debate in Parliament, Sue Kedgley spoke in the general debate the next day and we have asked a number of questions in the House.A main focus has been to counter the Government line that this is a very moderate report which takes a middle line.

We are developing our own plan from the report which we will take to the Government - based on the analysis in the Commission's report - some of which clearly talks about the risks of releasing GM organisms.The basic problem with the report is that they have taken 4 volumes to set out the evidence, much of which cautions against release for both environmental and economic reasons, and then their recommendations ignore all of this cautionary evidence.We think we can put up a good case that their analysis supports, at the very least, substantial delay, even though their recommendations don't.

Our detailed analysis will be available on our website in a week or so. Printed, faxed or email copies will be available from this office on request.

It is important to remember that, as yet, the Government has taken no action. They have said they will take three months to determine their response which will be released at the end of October.We are working on ensuring that their eventual reaction shows more vision than the Royal Commission.We will be talking with the Government to try and make sure this happens. The moratorium on field trials is still in place, though there is no commitment yet for it to be extended beyond 31 August.Getting it extended is clearly one of our most urgent goals.

We believe that it is vital the community makes its voice heard directly to the Government in a way that will positively influence their thinking.The hoary old ideas of writing to the PM and other MPs, writing to your local paper and encouraging others to do the same are all still worth doing. Even if they are not thoroughly read,they are counted. You could also promote the GE Free Zone stickers so they start springing up on people's letterboxes, front doors, farm gates, etc. We can print more if they are needed. We're still finding out what stocks exist and where. More postcards to Ministers have been printed by the Coalition for a GE-Free Environment, if you haven't already sent one postcard to each of the five Ministers - then do so. Contact Stephanie (see end of letter for her details) if you need postcards or stickers (funding donations are needed and much appreciated).

This is local body election year and the elections will take place in October before the Government has finally determined its position. The Royal Commission advised that we could have some areas in NZ where GM crops were not allowed in order to protect particular local industries such as kiwifruit. While we all know this is a daft idea and that these organisms won't stay where you put them, we can use the opportunity to demonstrate that so many councils want to be GE Free that there are limited opportunities to plant GE crops! Nelson of course has already done it, so this leads the way.

Every candidate should be asked in the election campaign whether they support a GE Free zone for their council. Other ideas we're working on are personal GE-Free statements from leading citizens, and a large public march in the next two weeks. We're interested in any other ideas and encourage people to take action in their community.

Many people have suggested a petition for a citizens' initiated referendum. There are many problems with this - it is hard to frame the topic so that a simple yes/no answer is all that is needed; it takes two months to get the topic approved by the clerk of the House; it is a huge amount of work to get 300,000 signatures in just a few months (1,000 signatures a day,every day!), and governments have typically ignored them.However,it is an action that can involve everyone, an excellent campaigning tool and would exert some political pressure in election year. We are still thinking about it.

While Caucus recognises the desire to take action, it does not endorse any form of direct action that would result in damage to property as part of this impassioned public response to the Royal Commission. We have to keep in mind that the Government has not made any response yet and our goal is still to encourage them to take a sensible position.

Kia kaha - this is not the end, it's the beginning. Let's not forget the day of hope last week, and the monarch butterfly which visited our gathering on the steps of Parliament.

Yours for a GE Free NZ, Jeanette Fitzsimons, Green Party Co-Leader.. .