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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 9 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 3216 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

Mr Speaker, recommendations 13 and 19 of the committee's report proposed amendments to the Gene Technology Bill 2002. The government opposes these changes on the ground that they would result in the ACT legislation falling out of line with the gene technology legislation of the Commonwealth and the states. In particular, it is important to note that, under the intergovernmental agreement, state and territory law must remain consistent with the Commonwealth act to be declared a corresponding state law.

Under recommendation 13, the committee held that clause 72A be withdrawn from the ACT bill and replaced with a reference to the Gene Technology (Licence Charges) Act 2000 of the Commonwealth, or that appropriate legislation be introduced amending the Gene Technology Bill 2002 to resolve the issue of a tax in subordinate legislation. The government has been advised that, if the section were replaced with a reference to the Commonwealth act, the ACT would not be able to impose its own annual licence charge on holders of GM licences, unlike every other jurisdiction, including the Commonwealth. Additionally, if the legislation were amended so that the licence charge would not amount to a tax, but would only be a fee for service, the ACT legislation would fall out of line with the need for it to be a corresponding state law.

Likewise, recommendation 19 of the committee's report recommended that the precautionary principle in clause 4 (a) be withdrawn from the Gene Technology Bill and replaced with the definition of the precautionary principle as set out in section 3 (2) (a) of the Environment Protection Act 1997 of the ACT. If this occurred, again the ACT legislation would fall out of line with the gene technology legislation of the Commonwealth and the other states. The states and territories have agreed on the national scheme for regulating gene technology on the basis that a state or territory law would become part of the national scheme of laws only if the state law were truly consistent with the Commonwealth act. In this regard, before a state or territory law can become part of the national scheme, it has to be declared by the Commonwealth minister to be a corresponding state law.

Additionally, all jurisdictions agreed-I think this is the more important point, Mr Speaker-that it would be better to provide clear directions to the regulator about how to apply precaution in considering each application, rather than having different principles applying under each of the state and territory legislative frameworks. Debate on the adequacy of the legislation should therefore, in the government's view, focus on the adequacy of the risk assessment and risk management processes in the legislation rather than an argument about the interpretation of the precautionary principle.

To further elaborate on that, I think it is worth noting that the key issue here is that there is a framework in place through the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator which is very much focused on the specifics of each individual assessment and making sure that there is a sufficient risk assessment in place in relation to each individual application. Rather than having an overarching principle which may not necessarily be relevant in every case, it is a case of ensuring that there is focus on the individual assessment in relation to each individual application. That is, indeed, the approach that the ACT government supports and it is the approach which has been used by the Gene Technology Regulator to date.

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