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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (26 November) . . Page.. 4636 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The most interesting questions start to arise when you put this research together with the trends in international trade. How feasible will it be for any communities in the world to protect their environment, their agricultural practice, their cultural preference in food? Some of these questions will be answered when the WTO makes its unchallengeable, undemocratic decision on the US dispute with Europe on exactly these matters. But in Australia we seem keen to head down the GM path before these issues have been explored.

Professor McDonald from Griffith University has expertise in the area of WTO agreements rather than specifically in GMOs. She has made the point, as have many others, that businesses in this new field are not required to put up a bond as assurance against damage, nor is any insurance required to be taken out in order to protect other farmers, other communities, or the environment and that, interestingly, no insurance companies are prepared to carry the risk, so it is privatise the profit and socialise the risk. The risk is being carried entirely by the community, whereas the profits will come to the private businesses that have developed the seeds, such as Monsanto with its roundup ready canola, a crop that is about to be given approval by the OGTR for commercial release.

In conclusion, given the nature of the legislation and its links with the Commonwealth's Gene Technology Act, it is not practical for us to amend our legislation to ensure a truly precautionary approach is taken in the licensing of the environmental release of genetically modified organisms, that the issues of risk and liability would be properly considered, and that social and economic cost would be considered in the regulatory and licensing process. In these circumstances, given the fact that there can be no assurance that open field trials will not corrupt any potential for organic or non-GM products in the ACT, there is no alternative but to put a ban on the environmental release of all GMOs. The onus is on those enterprises that wish to profit from a technology that may change the balance in our environment to prove the safety of that technology.

We may need to wait another 10 years, possibly only five according to experts, before we have a more profound understanding of the potential impact of this technology, but we have a responsibility to take this time. Surely there is enough evidence for even the most disinterested person to notice that some very serious mistakes have been made in the past and that it is dangerous indeed to play around with ecological balance. Whether it is the greenhouse effect, climate change, ozone depletion, the loss of species due to habitat destruction and the introduction of feral pests, both plant and animal, the destruction of our river systems, salinity or loss of water catchment, a thorough understanding of the implications of the activities which have caused these problems at an early stage could have prevented the damage we all now live with.

Some people like to suggest that such an approach means that we would never do anything. However, I would argue that it would be much better if certain things were never done and that applying the precautionary principle ensures that what appears to be a good thing is actually tested against potential negative outcomes. To proceed with new technology where its economic and social impact is unknown and dismissed and where information on its scientific and biological impact is only now emerging would be both careless and irresponsible.

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