Posted on 24-5-2002
Green
Engineering
The Green Party caucus will recommend to the Green Party conference
next
week that the release of genetically engineered organisms into
New
Zealand's environment will be a bottom line for its support
of another
Labour-led Government.
The public of New Zealand must understand that the new moratorium
preventing commercial release expires next year. A majority
Labour
Government will mean that New Zealand s GE-Free status will
be lost
forever, said Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons. The
Green caucus
believes that any coalition agreement with Labour must include
an agreement
to stop the moratorium being lifted in October 2003. That doesn
t mean we
don t want to be a coalition partner, just that we are setting
a bottom
line for that relationship. At our party conference next week,
I will be
asking our members to back the caucus on this decision.
Ms Fitzsimons said if a successful coalition agreement could
not be
achieved, the Greens could still support Labour forming a Government
because the moratorium will be in place. However any confidence
and supply
agreement would be void on the day that the moratorium was lifted.
If
voters want widespread release of genetically engineered crops,
animals or
viruses next year, then they are welcome to elect a majority
Labour
Government. If they want to stop that, they will have to make
sure that the
Green Party is there in sufficient strength to hold them back,
she said. Ms
Fitzsimons and the Green MPs left the House without voting after
her
speech during the third reading of the Hazardous Substances
and New
Organisms (Genetically Modified Organisms) Amendment Bill. The
Bill puts in
place the moratorium, and also an automatic expiry date.
The Green Party could not in all conscience vote for a Bill
which sets an
expiry date of October 2003 for the moratorium on commercial
release of
genetically engineered organisms. However, we will not vote
against it
because even a brief delay in the farming of GE crops and animals
here is a
step forward. Ms Fitzsimons said today s announcement does not
affect the
Green Party giving supply and confidence to the Government during
this
election term, as the moratorium is in place until after the
election.
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