Posted on 5-9-2003
ERMA
Still Not Up To It
The Governments so-called GE watchdog is still not up to the
job, only
7.5 weeks before the moratorium is due to lift, Green Co-Leader
Jeanette
Fitzsimons said today. This is yet another reason why the Government
should
extend the GE moratorium for at least another five years,Ms
Fitzsimons said.
The Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) has hardly
started to
address the serious criticisms in the scathing independent review
of its
competence earlier this year. The review found numerous glaring
and gross
inadequacies in ERMA, including serious gaps in essential skills
like gene
technology and environmental effects assessment. It found that
ERMA had
poor accountability, weak monitoring, skewed weighing of evidence
in favour
of GE applicants, and a flawed operational structure. The reviewers
made 49
recommendations for change. But ERMAs latest public progress
report on how
it has actioned the recommendations, tabled in Parliament this
week, does
not inspire any confidence. You have to look very hard to find
any
practical changes,Ms Fitzsimons said.
ERMAs response to many of the recommendations has simply been
to say no
action required, or to say that discussion is continuing internally,
which
does not inspire confidence. In response to the reviews serious
concern at
tensionsin the relationship between ERMA (the GE condition-setting
body)
and MAF (the GE condition-monitoring agency), ERMA simply says
it will:
further develop a cooperative arrangement that already functions
very
effectively.
This is not reassuring, when the review clearly found that the
relationship
was not functioning effectively,Ms Fitzsimons said. Environment
Minister
Marian Hobbs and ERMA chair Neil Walters have said publicly
this week they
have total faith in ERMAs ability to do the job. This is completely
misguided. I have next to no faith in ERMAs ability to competently
and
fairly consider applications for GE release after October 29.
If one of the Governments key GE agencies is not even ready
for GE, how can
New Zealand be said to be ready for GE? The answer is obvious
- we are not
ready - and more than 68 per cent of New Zealanders know it.
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