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.