Posted on 13-7-2002
PR Politics Begins Where Rationality Ends

I - Jeanette Fitzsimons

Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said today that the Government
and officials still need to answer serious questions about the GE corn
contamination controversy. While yesterday s press conference by officials
answered some questions, it also raised new questions and created confusion.

On Wednesday I sent a letter to the Minister for the Environment asking for
documents, as promised by the Prime Minister, to clarify what testing was
done, when it was received, by whom and what the results were. I m looking
forward to the answers. Nicky Hager s book shows that test results were
received on 01 November from Crop and Food, and on 24 November from
Melbourne. It was presumably on the basis of these two tests that Bas
Walker (chief executive of ERMA) said on 24 November Bear in mind that in
this case, there are already several positive tests for contamination which
can hardly be ignored , and MFE said on 29 November Some GM maize seed has
been released in New Zealand.

· Were any further tests done after these dates, if so, by whom, what
did they show, and when did officials and the Government receive the results.

· If as Minister Pete Hodgson has said, all of the last series of
tests came back negative, why on 15 January were two scientists who were
members of the ERMA authority, including the deputy chairman, asking since
we know that the Novartis sweet corn is contaminated, is it acceptable that
it should remain in the ground?

· Why are officials now claiming that a tolerance threshold of 0.5%
was never Government policy when the cabinet paper presented to cabinet on
11 December 2000 stated Ministers are advised that for purely practical
reasons, the system would have to be set up in relation to a very low but
nevertheless explicit level of allowable inadvertent contamination. The
present interim proposal is for a maximum of 0.5% contamination in sweet corn.

· If a tolerance threshold of 0.5% was never Government policy, why
did the head of ERMA and other senior members of ERMA believe until at
least late February that it was, and that it represented a significant
change in Government policy?

· If a tolerance threshold of 0.5% was never Government policy, why
is there no record of anyone correcting the apparently openly mistaken
officials?

· Why did the covering letter to the written report provided to the
Royal Commission on February 28 state that there was no change in
Government policy in relation to the measures taken around the suspected GM
corn contamination, even though a confidential letter from ERMA chief
executive Bas Walker on 27 February to acting Minister for the Environment
Pete Hodgson expressed concern that this statement could be seen as
misleading... There is no way that [the 0.5% contamination allowance] can
be construed as simply a continuation of existing policy. It presents a
policy, which (in my opinion) will probably require legislative change to
formalise.

· Why did it take until 28 February to provide a written report to
the Royal Commission, when a cabinet paper from 11th December 2000 stated
that the Royal Commission will need to be provided with a detailed report
of any information that has come to light during the investigation of this
issue, and be invited to consider these issues as part of their deliberations.


II - Greenpeace

Auckland, 12 July 2002: Statements made today by Bas Walker the head of
ERMA that “at no stage have we said categorically there was no
contamination” directly contradict the lines being peddled by Helen Clark
and Marian Hobbs since information of the release of GE corn was revealed
in Seeds of Distrust on Wednesday. Mr Walker stated on Checkpoint on
National Radio this evening that “at no stage have we said categorically
there was no contamination”. Helen Clark on Checkpoint on National Radio on
10th July stated “there was no GM proven in the seeds”. She also stated in
the Dominion Post on 11th July “extensive testing could not find any
evidence of GM presence in those plants”. Marian Hobbs press release on
Wednesday 10th July states, “It cannot be claimed therefore that GM
material was released” and she maintained that position on 3 News last night.

"hat is going on? Either ERMA is not talking to the Government or the
Government is ignoring it’s own regulatory body and is still covering up
the whole incident,” said Annette Cotter, Greenpeace spokesperson today.

Mr Walker confirmed that Dr Donald Hannah considered the full range of test
results when he made his report to Government, and stated “there was no
other written analysis of the test beyond [Donald Hannah’s] memorandum” and
confirmed there was no further testing. Mr Walker also confirmed that Dr
Hannah’s report was “the final scientific comment”. “How then can the
Government continue to deny that it knew the corn was GE contaminated? Dr
Hannah’s “final scientific comment” was that there was “less than 0.5
percent GM contamination”11 Evaluation of Information Received for Novartis
Jubilee Sweetcorn Lot NC9114, Donald Hannah, Manager, Science and Research,
5th December 2000.. “He never concluded that the corn was not contaminated,
only that the level of contamination came under the Government’s
judiciously selected allowable threshold. “To conclude from these results
that there was no GE contamination is like saying that tests show we only
have chickens when results show that we have ninety nine chickens and one
fox.”

Dr Hannah looked at the positive test results and determined that lab error
resulting in ‘false positives’ was unlikely because the labs ran identical
tests on ‘controls’ (seeds known to be GE free). These registered negative
while the Lot NC9114 seeds registered positive. He also concluded that the
contaminant was likely to be a GE variety Bt11.