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..
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