Greens Leader calls for new PM to overule States on GM Ban

Senator Bob Brown, leader of the Greens in Federal Parliament, has called on Prime Minister elect Kevin Rudd to overule the NSW and Victorian state governments on lifting the ban on Genetically modified canola crops: "This is a nation- changing decision being made by two state governments. It has huge ramifications across Australia - the Constitution ensures that there can be no confinement of the GM produce to the states involved," Senator Brown said. "Australia's premium status as a GM-free food producer is being sabotaged by Premiers Brumby and Iemma. The Constitution, including its corporations power, enables Mr Rudd to override them, and so he should," Senator Brown said yesterday (November 28).

Related: Organic farmers and consumers lose their choice by Vic & NSW GE canola green light | Greenpeace protest

The Food industry, both for retail consumption and Export, is concerned over cross-contamination by GM crops with wide consumer resistance to consuming food from genetically modified crops.

Tatiara Meats is Australia's largest lamb exporter, with clients in France, Germany and the United States. Managing director, Eckard Huebl, says in the long term his business will suffer from today's decision to lift the ban on GM. "I do believe, I am concerned, that we will indeed see a decline in the value of our product we send overseas, simply because we lose that status of all-natural product."

"I think we have this unique chance to have a whole country which is clean and natural, and GM-free, and I think we'd be, economically I think Australia, personally I believe Australia will be much better off to market all its food produce overseas and domestic for that matter, as a natural, clean GM-free product, rather than give in to a couple of multinationals trying to entice a small group of farmers." he said on the PM current affairs ABC radio program

Also interviewed was Don Lazzaro managing director of Pure Harvest, Australia's largest producer of natural foods who said "Certainly it will affect our business. All our customers don't want GM product in the food chain. Large companies like Goodman Fielder have said they don't want it. Coles Myer have stated that they don't want it in their brands. We co-pack for Coles Myer, and certainly it will affect our business."

"So what this means is there won't be any choice for farmers that don't want to grow GM, because I don't believe that there are enough procedures and structural barriers in place to stop cross-contamination. So if you don't want to have GM food, you've basically, what this will mean is that you won't have that choice. At the moment the average consumer has no choice when it comes to GM. There's no labelling to identify that the product is GM." he said.

Coles, one of Australia's largest food and grocery retailers with 35 percent market share, has come out in opposition to GM ingredients based upon overwhelming consumer sentiment against products with GM ingredients. Read Coles statement on GM foods.

Max Ould from Goodman Fielder Limited in his 2007 AGM address on 22 November said "We recently wrote to all governments in Australia, urging a continuation of the moratorium as we believe that our consumers are increasingly concerned about the uncertainty surrounding the possible long term effects of consuming genetically modified material. It is our experience that most consumers prefer foods that are not genetically modified and the company is working to eliminate raw materials that are genetically modified from our retail branded products, wherever this is technically possible." Goodman Fielder is Australasia’s leading listed food company, delivering to 30,000 outlets every day. It is the largest supplier of edible fats and oils to food manufacturers and wholesalers in Australia and New Zealand.

Chairman of the Biological Farmers of Australia Organic Standards Committee noted that "this step will mean the inevitable unleashing of pollens that cannot be completely regulated nor controlled in the open environment and the food and seed chain. This will restrict choice and freedom, particularly for organic farmers and a wider range of consumers, under current regulatory and market arrangements," said Dr Andrew Monk.

"The support for GE canola flies in the face of significant evidence of costs to the economy,
health and environment presented to the panels in both Victoria and NSW. The BFA put in
a submission to both governments outlining substantial issues in all three areas and it is of
significant concern that our submission appears to have been completely overlooked." said Scott Kinear, GMO spokeperson for the BFA.

Andrew Youngberry from Eden Farms, a large direct supplier to Woolworths supermarket chain, said on the ABC TV Landline program "I think that GM technology is probably too dangerous for us to be releasing onto the open market. The problem is that there's no going back ... from once you let it in, there's no going back. And it's ... again, I'm afraid we might be opening a Pandora's box."

Dr Judy Carman, epidemiologist and director of the Institute of Health and Environment Research said that there is almost no hard evidence that it's safe and criticised the Gene Technology Regulator and food safety authorities for not doing enough independent research. "They do none of their own safety testing. They do not have laboratories. They rely upon information given to them by GM crop companies, and at the moment there is a lot of generalisation that it is in fact safe. But a lot of the safety assessments are actually assumption based reasoning, not hard data evidence based reasoning, and that's the problem." she said on Landline.

GM crops such as maize, soy and canola are already imported and sold as stock feed.

Background

• Ian Macdonald's press release: Choice to be given to NSW farmers and consumers: Macdonald
• Victorian Press release on Candy Broad's Blog

• Information on the review of the moratorium on GM canola in Victoria can be found at the Victorian Department of Primary Industries website including the Review Panel report.
  The Indepedent Review GM Crop Moratorium Final Report can be found at the NSW Department of Primary Industries website.

• The ABC TV program Landline did an 'even-handed' story on the GM divide.
• Pro-GMO arguments can be found at GMO Pundit a.k.a David Tribe blog.
• Greenpeace Australia - True Food Network
• Biological Farmers of Australia Press Release - Organic farmers and consumers lose their choice by Vic & NSW GE canola green light 28-11-07
• Gene Ethics Network