New Zealand feature: election result key to NZ biotech

By Tanya Hollis
Friday, 12 July, 2002


With New Zealand's general election imminent, many in the biotechnology industry believe the outcome could determine the sector's future.

Central to the campaign, as far as biotech goes, is the unflinching stance of the nation's Green Party, which wants to see the existing moratorium broadened and extended indefinitely beyond the scheduled October 2003 finish.

In a statement issued last month, Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said the party vowed to pull support from any government that ended the moratorium on the release of GMOs.

"The Green Party's strong stance on GE doesn't mean that we are ruling out being a coalition partner, just that we are setting a bottom line for that relationship....any confidence and supply agreement would be void on the day that the moratorium was lifted," Fitzsimons said.

According to executive director of biotech lobby group the Life Sciences Network, Francis Wevers, the Greens inflexibility left the future of GM-related biotech in New Zealand on a knife's edge.

Wevers said that according to current polling, the incumbent Labour-led government could retain the balance of power if the Greens captured up to 10 per cent of the vote.

But any more than that could make the situation unworkable and, to Wevers' mind, unthinkable.

"What they have said is that if they are in a position of power after the election and they have the sufficient numbers when Labour is required to pass legislation, they will withhold supply and confidence unless Labour agrees that the moratorium or restraint period on commercial release is extended indefinitely," he said.

"It is inconsistent with the government's policy as identifying biotechnology as one of the three strands of a growth strategy for this country."

Wevers said several Kiwi research projects were approaching that point where steps were needed to take it down the commercial road.

But he warned that if investors were confronted with a legislative quagmire that made it difficult to take projects to a commercial level, they would probably go elsewhere.

"You could put these things on the shelf until the situation changes, but people will move away from New Zealand," Wevers said. "New Zealand will lose out all the way around in terms of investment opportunities and product development. It's an unthinkable situation."

He said the Greens were holding the nation to ransom and basing their mandate on opinion polls that were inconsistent with other surveys.

In a poll of 476 New Zealanders commissioned by the Greens and released on June 17, 64 per cent of people said they thought GMOs should be kept in contained laboratories, 24 per cent disagreed with the question and just over 11 per cent said they did not know.

On the question of whether the farming of GE crops should be allowed in New Zealand, 46 per cent said no, 35 per cent said yes and 17.5 per cent said they didn't know.

"This poll shows the clear majority of people share the Green vision of keeping GE in the lab and keeping our environment GE-Free," Fitzsimons said.

"It also shows that the Labour Party is misreading the views of New Zealanders in planning to lift the moratorium on the release of genetically engineered crops and animals into our environment in October next year."

By contrast, a National Business Review-HP Invent poll showed that 76 per cent of Green supporters backed the outcome of the Royal Commission, supported by the Labour Government, which stated that New Zealand should proceed with caution on GM to protect the nation's opportunities.

"The majority of New Zealanders don't want to see the benefits lost and want to proceed with the outcomes of the Royal Commission," Wevers said. "But between the 76 per cent majority and the 100 per cent total there are 24 per cent, and if they vote for the Greens then you would have a problem."

Under New Zealand law, GM research is permitted in contained laboratory and field trials, but commercial release is banned until October next year when the situation is to be reviewed.

According to the general manager of science at AgResearch, Dr Paul Atkinson, an extension would have a chilling effect on commercialisation of projects as well as the nation's ability to attract international specialists in the field.

"The bureaucracy of just doing the first two steps [lab and field trials] where it has to go to the Environmental Risk Management Authority is huge and so that has a switching-off effect on scientists," Atkinson said.

"So the steps that follow become fraught when potential investors can't see the prospect of being able to put in a NZ application for commercialisation at the other end."

Atkinson said he was aware of researchers who had already left New Zealand to work elsewhere because of the difficulties in progressing their work.

He said the Greens' uncompromising stance in which commercial release of GM was a non-negotiable position was worrying for the industry.

"Labour has taken the stance of the Royal Commission and the business community would be very unhappy if they were to give in to the Greens' demands," Atkinson said. "For now they seem to be pretty firm in their resolve during the campaign in telling the Greens they won't cave in to such tactics, but what will happen after the election?"

The Labour Party, for its part, is committed to proceeding with caution. In a statement issued last week in response to Greens claims, Environment Minister Marian Hobbs said the government wanted to achieve a balance between a safe and healthy environment and the benefits offered by technological advances.

"There is no problem with the Greens having a different position to Labour, but the notion that a government can be held to ransom over a single issue is one that should concern all those interested in stable government," Hobbs said.

"By taking this approach the Greens risk putting the country into a perpetual electoral cycle and halting the very work they urged the government to undertake."

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