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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3212 ..

The opponents of GM such as the Greens, despite their proclaimed concern for the plight of people in underdeveloped countries, are actually denying those same people the opportunity to have more and better food.

You could insert here, “and also impeding progress in the ACT”. The article goes on:

For example, a Swiss firm has developed a genetically modified (GM) rice which delivers vitamin A to people in developing countries where rice is the staple food. Vitamin A deficiencies are believed to be responsible for 3,000 deaths a day and 500,000 cases of infant blindness a year.

While a GM rice, known as “golden rice” capable of delivering a person’s daily vitamin A requirements in a 200 gram serve has been ready for four years, the crop has still not been made available to farmers in developing nations because of regulatory obstacles based on undue paranoia on the part of well fed Green’s and so-called environmentalists and the political pressure they have been able to place on nervous government and regulators.

I will not take it too much further than that but, as one who has for many years urged further capacity building in hard-luck countries and urged my nation and others to undertake deeper humanitarian aid operations and empower our own commercial entities to assist in that process in the interest of trying to minimise the need for emergency operation interventions in those places, I find that this article strikes a nerve.

To bring it back to home, I am not an agriculturist by trade, but I take a bit of an interest in this and have read a raft of opinions such as this, which reinforce the uncomfortable notion here in the ACT that the Greens and their fellow travellers have their heads firmly planted in the sand in respect of gene technology. I believe that exposing the weaknesses of the Greens’ argument in respect of the international scene demonstrates how backward their position is in respect of the ACT. I do not think that they are doing anything at all to advance the argument. By amending the government’s bill, they will not be advancing this argument in a positive way at all.

MR WOOD (Minister for Disability, Housing and Community Services, Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for Arts and Heritage, and Acting Minister for Health) (8.52): The government takes issue with Ms Tucker’s bill. It is reasonable to interpret it as requiring the minister to make decisions about matters on environmental protection grounds rather than on marketing grounds as permitted under the national regulatory scheme. Hence, Ms Tucker’s bill potentially trespasses on the legislative authority of the Commonwealth.

First, under the Constitution, the ACT government is not permitted to legislate in an area that the Commonwealth is thought to cover. Consequently, Ms Tucker’s bill is potentially invalid, making any decisions made under it null and void. Secondly, it appears to be in conflict with the national regulatory scheme for gene technology; the position jeopardises the territory’s participation in that scheme. The overall purpose of the bill differs considerably from the government’s.

Ms Tucker’s bill covers not just GM food crops but also potentially any GMO that has been approved by the regulator for intentional release into the environment. Ms Tucker’s

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