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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 9 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 3217 ..
MR CORBELL (continuing):
The government believes that the Gene Technology Bill, in conjunction with the Commonwealth act, adequately meets its objective of providing for an effective national regulatory system that is open, transparent and accountable. The government believes further that the measures in the bill will ensure a cautious, comprehensive and rigorous national approach to gene technology and GMOs, with scientifically based decisions, providing the community with confidence in the system.
Mr Speaker, I turn briefly to some of the issues Mr Smyth raised in his comments and will speak further on the issue of the precautionary principle. There is, of course, continuing debate about the interpretation of the precautionary principle, but the government does accept that in most instances it is appropriate to apply the principle. However, in looking at the issue of the application of the precautionary principle in the context of our gene technology legislation, it is worth noting that, in essence, the precautionary principle is already incorporated into the Commonwealth's Gene Technology Act, which uses the same words as those which were endorsed at the 1992 Rio declaration on environment and development.
The act says:
The objective of this act is to be achieved through a regulatory framework which provides that, where there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, a lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.
There is already a significant level of risk adverse behaviour on the part of the regulator which is drawn from this section of the Commonwealth's Gene Technology Act. The government believes that is the most appropriate way of addressing that issue.
I wish to respond to some of the other issues Mr Smyth raised. He criticised the government's failure to agree to recommendation 7 of the committee report, which reads:
The Committee recommends that the Government lobby the Federal Government for an independent inquiry into farming practice, including the use of GM products.
This is a quite overarching recommendation. Whilst the government agreed with the other recommendations from the committee which sought the ACT government to lobby the Commonwealth or the relevant ministerial council, in this case the government chose not to agree. The reason for that is that we do not think such a call on the part of the ACT government would be a credible one. We have a very small agricultural base and, in the context of large jurisdictions with significant agricultural bases, we did not think that we would carry much weight in making such a call, so we did not agree.
Further, it should be noted, as the government did in its response, that recently there have been a number of examinations of farming practice in the use of GM products, most recently by the Primary Industries Ministerial Council and its relevant standing
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