PSGR request that MPs put the Gene Technology Bill on hold pending a European Commission outcome
Email sent to New Zealand members of Parliament.
NB: Gene Technology Bill. First reading December 17, 2024. Submissions now open to the Health Committee by February 17, 2025.
Dear Members of Parliament,
Please put the Gene Technology Bill on hold, pending a European Commission outcome.
Why?
Proposed European legislation has stalled' (see attached April 12, 2024 draft).
In Europe, deregulation exclusively concerns plants, while in New Zealand deregulation would encompass plants, animals, and microbes.
New Zealand would deregulate techniques of gene editing that have not been deregulated anywhere else. However, this 'point of difference' is not clearly disclosed.
The European Commission has drafted significant caveats, including transparency provisions and protections for non-GMO breeders into their proposed legislation.
MBIE claims that the Precautionary Principle approach is outdated. Precaution with newly created gene edited organisms is never outdated, due to new compounds being produced.
Note that in the European Commission legislation, the Precautionary Principle text is included. The Precautionary Principle must be inserted in any legislation claiming to steward GMOs which include gene editing techniques and gene edited organisms.
The current Bill must be thoroughly understood by MP's in light of proposed FSANZ changes in regulation - current proposals could result in 94% of gene edited foods avoiding premarket assessment (and traceability). Food safety of these GE foods is very unlikely to have been assessed.
In New Zealand it is claimed that the legislation will be 'evidence based' and 'risk proportionate', but it cannot be:
If these claims for 'evidence' and 'risk' are exclusively based on Australian legislation.
If the technical experts are a small group of people who may work for organisations that receive funding for biotechnology research and where their scope of feedback is restricted.
Neither Biosecurity nor the Ministry for the Environment have conducted an assessment or impact analysis on how the resulting legislation will impact them.
No economic analysis has been undertaken.
Assessment of global consumer willingness to pay a premium for GMO-free food has not been included.
No assessment of risk as technologies scale up and releases into the environment speed up, following deregulation.
Please find attached:
PSGR October Fact Check 101 which discusses these issues, and provides links to the European Commission document.
Article by trustee Jodie Bruning (B.Bus.Agribus., M.A.) which discusses policy papers that were released this week.
Kind regards| Ngā mihi
Elvira Dommisse
BSc(Hons), PhD (Biotechnology).
Thanks for this good work. It will be most interesting to hear the response of Winston Peters, ostensibly the lonely carrier of the flame of democracy, not to forget common sense.