Posted on 8-8-2003

Third Reading Budget - Greens No Confidence
Speech read by Jeanette Fitzsimons MP, Green Party Co-Leader

It is with considerable sadness that the Green Party cannot support this
third reading of the 2003/4 Budget.

That is because, contrary to the views of National, Act and NZ First, we do
not see this budget as all bad. It contains some good initiatives and
continues some Green Party initiatives from previous years which have now
become baselined. But that is all overridden by this governments refusal to
listen to the people in their demand that we maintain the opportunity to
grow and eat food free of genetically engineered organisms, and that we
protect our environment from the unpredictable harm they could cause.

We made it very clear at the last election that GE was an issue of
confidence for us and it remains so. The 35 percent increase in our vote
at that election despite the untruths told about us was an endorsement of
our position and we will keep our promise. That is why, Mr Speaker, I move
an amendment to the amendment, namely to delete all the words after & and
insert that this House cannot express confidence in this Labour-Progressive
government and their United supporters because they are determined to
promote the release in to our farms, fields and environment of
unpredictable genetically engineered organisms, despite strong opposition
from consumers, growers, food manufacturers, exporters, economists,
environmentalists, health workers, local authorities, churches and ordinary
people with common sense.

Its a pity things have come to this pass, because as I said, there are some
good initiatives. This government is the first to have grasped the nettle
of climate change and put in place at least some measures to help us
observe the Kyoto protocol. Energy efficiency and renewable sources of
energy now have a statutory role under the National Strategy. Research is
underway on agricultural emissions. Two wind electricity projects are
planned with the help of Kyoto credits and while it is little and late, it
is more than any previous government has done.

Sales of public assets have stopped and there is a commitment to returning
the rail track into public ownership and investing in restoring it to some
useful state. Even though we are not supporting the government on
confidence and supply, they have listened to the Greens proposals repeated
for two years now to regain the tracks and they are taking our advice. We
have a new Land Transport Strategy that prepares for the twenty-first
century by recognising sustainability as a vital goal and widening the
vision to include all modes of land transport. Under our co-operation
agreement with the Government we have contributed to that Strategy and the
legislation that flows from it. We have supported legislation to improve
health and safety in the workplace, fairer employment rights, and the
comprehensive rewrite of the Local Government Act. With Nandors Clean Slate
Bill we prompted the Government to introduce its own bill on the topic and
we have worked with them to incorporate much of our position. We welcomed
the decision to stay out of the US invasion of Iraq and support the UN,
though we are less happy with the decision to send army engineers into a
war zone where they are not particularly welcome by the locals.

There have been negatives, too. The global assault on civil liberties that
followed September 11 has been one of the more disturbing aspects of the
last couple of years. Unfortunately, the New Zealand Government has not
been immune to this hysteria and has joined in the war against freedom,
with no less than four bills being introduced or passed in the last year
that undermine our rights as citizens to speak our minds and carry out our
lives free from the secret intervention of the state security agencies. The
Greens were the only party to oppose these restrictions and stand up for
freedom. Then there was this weeks slap in the face for beneficiaries which
seems to
have been driven more by focus groups than by any attempt at justice. My
Co-leader Rod Donald said in the first reading debate The Budget surplus is
a fraud. It is built on the backs of kiwi kids living in poverty, hard
working low income families who need a tax break and young people who are
shut out of affordable tertiary education.I endorse those comments. We are
disappointed at the continued refusal to recognise the poverty which
restricts opportunity for so many of our people.

But the defining point for us is the intransigence of the Government on
genetic engineering and that is why we cannot vote for this budget.

As the only nine Parliamentary representatives of the hundreds of thousands
of New Zealanders who do not want GE released into their food or their
environment, we promised those people our vote would be conditional on
preserving New Zealands GE free status except for the many beneficial uses
in a contained laboratory. Lets remember that the polls tell us we are not
representing a minority here. The most recent asked about preserving GE
free food production in NZ at least until our markets will accept it and an
overwhelming 80 per cent supported that policy. Once you get outside this
building, with its blinkered views and half baked science and political
slogans and engage with the real world of common sense, you find we are the
majority.

Since the Government made its decision to promote the release of GE a lot
of evidence has accumulated. There would be no loss of face if the
Government were to engage with that evidence and change its mind. There is
no shame in allowing the new facts to get in the way of old prejudices. The
GE Free movement would congratulate, not scoff. Lets look at some of what
has happened since the Royal Commission reported and the government
rejected its advice of caution and accepted its advice to proceed. Things
which no-one could have known at the time. According to the Panel of
Independent Scientists, including a number of household names, GE crops
have failed to deliver their promised benefits, and have not significantly
increased yields or reduced herbicide or pesticide use. Their call to put
this technology on hold until we know a lot more finds that there can be no
co-existence of GE and non-GE crops and contamination is unavoidable. The
MAF report recommended by the Royal Commission found that co-existence can
only occur if all non-GE crops accept a contamination level of one per
cent, which growers, consumers and overseas markets do not want.

The Independent Panel points to growing problems on the farm with herbicide
resistant weeds and safety concerns that have never been investigated.

The European Union has adopted labelling rules that will require all our
food exports to be labelled as containing GE material if we adopt the one
per cent threshold for allowable contamination. Supermarkets have said that
they simply wont buy anything labelled GE because their consumers don't
want it.

While the Gene Technology Regulator in Australia has approved GE canola for
growing there, none will be grown because all the states where it could be
have imposed their own bans of one kind or another. They see a market
advantage in doing that and if we persist in the foolish plan to release GE
food crops we will be at a marketing disadvantage compared with Australia.
The science has also moved on. Two years ago scientists thought there were
some 150,000 genes in the human genome. Now they have reduced that to
30,000. The point of this is not just that we know so little and keep
finding we were wrong; but rather that the whole basis of genetic
engineering, the belief that genes alone control inheritance and that each
gene codes for only one characteristic, is wrong. Thirty thousand genes are
not enough to control human inheritance and other factors must be involved.
When we transfer genes what else are we transferring, without having any
idea of its function?

There are many recommendations of the Royal Commission the Govt is not even
pretending to implement. Like not using food animals or plants to produce
pharmaceuticals. Like allowing councils to establish, after consultation
with their communities, GE exclusion zones to protect local production.
Like having a strategy to protect bees. The only strategy to protect bees,
announced by MAF after months of research, is that beekeepers will be
responsible for finding out on the internet where GE crops are grown and
moving their hives six kilometres away from them. Great!

The period of constraint, as the Govt likes to call the moratorium is
supposed to allow research to be done on a key concern the Royal Commission
expressed - the significant gaps in our knowledgeabout the effects on
soils, on native species and on horizontal gene transfer. A contract has
been let to examine these things. When does it report? A few years from
now! What does the Govt plan to do if it comes back with a list of does and
donts to prevent horizontal gene transfer of dangerous genetic material and
GE corn pollen is already blowing all over our farms; GE viruses and
bacteria from veterinary medicines are living in our soil after being
excreted by animals; escaped GE salmon are swimming in our rivers and
farmers are unable to sell their farms where they have grown GE ryegrass
because our markets dont want meat or milk which has been fed GE feed?

Mr Speaker, there is still time to turn back.