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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-03-04 Daily Xml
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Motions

Genetically Modified Crops

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. M.C. Parnell:

That the regulations under the Genetically Modified Crops Management Act 2004 concerning Designation of Area No. 2, made on 19 December 2019 and laid on the table of this council on 5 February 2020, be disallowed.

(Continued from 19 February 2020.)

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (16:46): As we know, the issue of the GM moratorium in South Australia has been rather vexed. In order to understand both sides of the argument Labor has met with those who are seeking to have the moratorium lifted, those who see a benefit, primary producers and their peak bodies. We have also met with concerned South Australians who want our state to remain free from genetically modified crops. There are indeed valid arguments on both sides.

Due to the far-reaching consequences of lifting the moratorium, South Australian Labor wanted to ensure that the parliamentary process to achieve this was completely thorough. However, we saw last year that that was not the case, with the Minister for Primary Industries seeking to effectively overturn the Genetically Modified Crops Management Act through regulation, without going through parliament to amend the act. Hence, the disallowance motion was moved last year.

As members would know, under the act the moratorium is currently in place until 2025. The broadbrush approach would have meant that the moratorium was lifted across all of mainland South Australia, with the exception of Kangaroo Island. Mainland communities who wanted to maintain their GM free status were ignored with that blunt tactic. Then, last year, at the last minute, the government introduced a bill which was rushed through and then ultimately defeated. However, on 18 February this year the minister established a process which should have been followed right from the beginning by laying on the table the Genetically Modified Crops Management (Designated Area) Amendment Bill 2020.

The opposition will give the government's bill due consideration. However, it was naive of the Marshall government to attempt to change major legislation through a change in regulation. Ultimately, Labor is focused on doing the right thing by the whole of the state and doing the right thing in terms of parliamentary process being respected. We also need to respect the needs of all the separate communities in South Australia, communities that may well have a divergence of ideas in terms of whether or not GM should be allowed in their area.

We want to achieve the right outcome that allows broadacre farmers, particularly those who want to access the GM canola technology, to get what they want but, at the same time, not at the expense of communities in South Australia that enjoy the benefits of GM free status. We are also very aware of the field trials that are being conducted on wheat, barley and other crops that will enable greater drought and frost resistant crops in addition to other potential worthwhile GM attributes.

We on the Labor side have never doubted the science behind GM, but we do understand there are growers who believe they gain a market advantage from being GM free. We are very keen to have a full debate. We do not think that regulation is the way to change the moratorium that would otherwise be in place until 2025. We will therefore be supporting the Hon. Mark Parnell's motion.

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (16:49): Firstly, I would like to thank the Hon. Mark Parnell for introducing this motion for the disallowance of the GM crops regulations. Many of us have spoken at length about GM, both in this chamber and in the other place. Many of us, on both sides, have spoken about the pros and the cons, the benefits and the detriments, and the advantages and the disadvantages of allowing the cultivation of genetically modified crops in South Australia. Many of us feel very passionately about this issue.

One thing I do not want to do today is rehash and repeat what has already been said a number of times in this chamber. Instead, I would like to draw attention to the contempt shown by the government regarding GM, what the future looks like for this issue and how they have used this issue as a political football. Rather than give the matter the proper attention and consideration a change of this nature deserves, the government has attempted to introduce GM through a shifty regulation. Instead of introducing a bill for the parliament to debate last year, as we all know is the proper process, the government attempted to sneakily make reform through regulations. Without the option of debate and with the shifty nature of attempting to change GM regulations, it was not surprising that this was not supported by this chamber.

After those sneaky regulations were disallowed, the government decided to rush a bill through the parliament just before Christmas. The government only gave the parliament hours to consider a GM bill—that is right, hours. It was nothing more than a stunt. The government gave us mere hours to consider a topic as complex as the lifting of the moratorium in South Australia to allow GM crops to be grown.

While this was insulting to the members of this chamber, most importantly it was insulting to the farmers and the industries that are invested in this issue. Not only was it insulting, it was against a rule of parliament that when a government introduces a bill, or if any member introduces a bill, it is supposed to sit on the Notice Paper for 10 days to give the opposition and the crossbenchers the opportunity to consult with communities and stakeholders in order to develop a thoughtful and considered response to a bill.

Clearly, that is not possible in the last few sitting days of the year, when farmers are racing against the clock to finish the harvest and businesses are racing against the busy end-of-year schedule. Despite the lack of consultation and the lack of time, the government brought back parliament with the sole intent of passing a bill. They brought back parliament with only one thought, that of passing one bill. The Premier even spruiked this bill at the AHA lunch that very day, only hours before they hoped to pass the bill in this chamber. The Premier, the Hon. Steven Marshall, boasted at the AHA lunch that this was a government of reform and that he looked forward to the bill passing shortly through this chamber. We all know how that went.

Instead of coming to sit in this chamber to watch the bill being debated, as was done for the land tax reform, the Premier was absent. The Premier was here when land tax was being debated, but he did not afford GM the same respect. Obviously, this bill was just not high enough on the government's priority list, despite the fact that they say it is. The Minister for Trade and Investment compared the nature and changes of this bill to the invention of the tractor.

The government's actions showed their lack of care. The fact is that they were absent from the debate of the day for which they had brought back this parliament so that we could debate and pass just one bill—their bill—to bring GM crops into this state. They were not here. It was playing a stunt; it was nothing more than political football on an issue that is so important to this state.

Labor has extended an olive branch and wants to work with the government in a bipartisan way so that everyone can win in this debate. We want to give local communities the ability to opt in to retain a GM free status so that they can market themselves as being GM free and possibly receive a premium for that GM free status.

The government has repeatedly said, 'This should be about choice,' so let's give communities choice. We need to be giving the power back to our local communities because they know what is best for them. Let's hope the government starts taking this issue of genetically modified crops with the appropriate weight, care and attention it deserves, which cannot be done through shifty regulations and rushed political conversations.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Minister for Trade and Investment) (16:55): I am very happy to offer some comments on behalf of the government in relation to the honourable member's motion to disallow the regulations. I firstly make some comments in relation to the contribution just made by the Hon. Emily Bourke. I do not know where she has been for the last 16 years since the moratorium was in place. It has been in place since 2004. There has been a long, long conversation across all of regional South Australia, in fact all of South Australia, over that 16 years.

She talked in in her contribution about the lack of consultation. As members would know, it was late in 2017 that the moratorium extended to 2025 by a deal that the Hon. Mark Parnell stitched up in the very last days of the former parliament. So this issue has been well ventilated. Then, of course, we had the select committee that was part of that deal. The Hon. John Darley supported the Hon. Mark Parnell. I think Mr Darley is not here today. Having said that, he was on the select committee and he has formed the view that the moratorium should be lifted. He took all the evidence. He was, if you like, an honest broker in that particular debate and he has seen fit to lift the moratorium.

The government funded an independent review and sought recommendations from the Genetically Modified Crop Advisory Committee, which supported the government's position on GM to lift the moratorium, so I think it is a bit rich for the Hon. Emily Bourke to say there has not been any consultation. It is now almost two years since the election and there has been significant consultation in those two years, and of course the debate had raged for a number of years prior. That is why the Hon. Mark Parnell rushed the changes through.

The Hon. Emily Bourke even hit the nail on the head about producers possibly getting a premium. The review found that, since 2002, there would be no premiums for South Australian producers, despite being the only mainland state with a GM crop moratorium.

The Hon. C.M. Scriven interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Scriven, we have listened in silence to your contribution.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: We have GM crops. As we know, canola is grown in New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland. Those economies are booming. They are going really well. In fact, earlier today the opposition was offering some comment around South Australia's economy, yet interstate the economies are going better and they do not have a GM moratorium.

There is a range of factors that dictate economic conditions. However, I find it almost insulting to the farming community that they say, 'Let's work through the legislation in debate.' I remind the 22 honourable members of this chamber that there are no farmers sitting in this chamber anymore—not one. I am a retired farmer, or have moved on from farming. The Hon. John Dawkins was one, but not one of these people opposite who say, 'This is a contempt of the parliament,' and, 'We know what's best.' Why do we not listen to the stakeholders who actually want this benefit?

I have taken the Hon. Tung Ngo to the South Australian-Victorian border. You can have GM canola grown alongside non-GM canola. The farmers get the benefit of having the GM canola if they choose or if they choose to be GM free and grow non-GM canola they can do that as well. If the fence at the Victorian-South Australian border is good enough, the fence between two farmers' properties anywhere in South Australia should be good enough.

It is quite frustrating that it looks like the numbers will be such that these regulations will be disallowed and then the farming community gets a level of uncertainty again. We on this side of the chamber want to provide our farmers with certainty. It is tough enough when it does not rain. It is tough enough when you have global market conditions against you. It is tough enough when you have coronavirus and all the other things that are confronting our nation, and yet we are now trying to deny our farmers access to some technology.

I am not going to rehash the debate for too long, as I said. We want our farmers to have certainty, and I make it very clear that we will continue to reintroduce regulations until the legislation is passed.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (16:59): In summing up the debate I would like to thank the Hon. Clare Scriven and the Hon. Emily Bourke for their contributions and support. I also thank the Hon. David Ridgway for his contribution.

This is the second time in the last three months that the Legislative Council is to vote on a motion to disallow these regulations. The arguments in favour of the motion have not changed substantially in those three months. As other members have said, I also do not propose to repeat those arguments again now, but I do need to reflect on some recent developments.

What is most incomprehensible to me is the government's belligerent approach to this issue. Yesterday, we saw the minister issue a press release that included a promise to 'continue to reintroduce regulations lifting the GM moratorium on the SA mainland if SA-Best, the Greens and the Labor Party disallow them in parliament.' That is the threat. Rather than focusing on good policy, good legislation and protecting the best interests of all South Australians, the minister is saying, 'It's my way or the highway.' Effectively he is saying, 'If you keep disallowing my regulations I will just keep reintroducing them.'

When we do, for the second time, disallow these regulations—which I fully expect we will very shortly—tomorrow's Government Gazette may well see these regulations re-emerge from the ashes for a third time, exactly the same regulations, and it will be no surprise to the minister or any other member to see a third disallowance motion introduced soon after that. The minister seems to think that by mounting a war of attrition he can somehow convince those who do not agree with him to just give up. That is not going to happen.

I think the minister's attitude is contemptuous of the parliament and our proper lawmaking processes. It is contemptuous of the Legislative Council. Even worse than that, it is contemptuous of consumers and of farmers, the vast bulk of whom do not want and will not plant genetically modified crops.

The minister seems to say that by continually reintroducing the same regulations he is somehow providing confidence to invest in South Australia. That is absolute rubbish, because even Grain Producers SA, who support lifting the moratorium, are smart enough to advise their members that planting GM crops in reliance of these regulations and before the issue is properly resolved in parliament is fraught with danger. To quote from the Grain Producers newsletter to members that was sent out on 31 January:

While GPSA cautiously welcomed these new regulations following the defeat of legislation in Parliament late last year, it is expected that Greens MLC Mark Parnell will immediately move to disallow these regulations, which (if successful) would re-instate the moratorium across South Australia.

For that reason, GPSA has warned growers to exercise caution given the legal uncertainty which exists at this stage. If the moratorium is reintroduced, growers possessing GM material may face fines of up to $200,000 under the current provisions of the Act.

So far from providing certainty and confidence, the minister's belligerent approach in continuing to try to do this through regulations is adding to the uncertainty that farmers are facing. What is also galling is that when other members of parliament have the temerity to suggest that farmer protection measures should be put in place to deal with the inevitable contamination and losses that will accompany introduction of GM crops, all they get from the minister is vitriol and criticism. The minister went so far yesterday as to claim that if the agrochemical corporations were forced to stand behind their products and to accept responsibility when things go wrong they would boycott South Australia.

We need to think this through, we need to nut this out. We know that contamination from GM crops to non-GM crops is inevitable. Everywhere that GM canola has been grown it eventually spreads off farm. We also know that this contamination can result in loss and additional expense for those landholders whose properties are contaminated. Yet the minister says that if we try to make the multibillion dollar international agrochemical corporations responsible for the losses that their products cause, then they will boycott South Australia.

Let's put this in the context of how our society works. We do not allow uninsured motor vehicles on our roads. We do not allow uninsured airlines to fly over our communities. Doctors and lawyers cannot practise their professions without insurance. Requiring businesses to stand behind the safety of their products, their services and their processes is already enshrined in many state laws. It is not a new concept. As well as the examples I just gave, we have laws, for example, where the EPA can demand security deposits, bonds and financial guarantees from companies in situations where spills and other contamination will be expensive to clean up. Without the guarantee, you do not get a licence to operate. That is the law in South Australia.

Yet, in the case of GM crops, the minister wants to give Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, a free ride with no responsibility whatsoever for the harm we know their products will cause. Instead, he prefers a free-for-all where farmers sue each other in the courts for damages and where struggling rural communities are further divided, whilst a company that was most recently valued at $100 billion gets away scot-free. That is not what we want for South Australia, in my view.

If the minister had any credibility on this matter, he would abandon his plan to use subordinate legislation to undermine the will of the parliament and he would instead prosecute his plan B. As other members have referred to already, the minister has a plan B. He has a bill that he has introduced into the assembly to achieve the same outcome as these regulations. The minister says that they will be debating that bill in the assembly this week and that we will receive it in the Legislative Council sometime after that.

Of course, legislating is not the government's preferred option because they do not want to consider any amendments. In fact, the minister yesterday went so far as to claim that some parts of the industry would rather wait until the moratorium expires in the year 2025 than accept some of the accountability and transparency measures that have been proposed by other MPs. In relation to how best to enshrine accountability and transparency, I will leave that debate for another day, but the clear message to the minister is that he cannot avoid this debate. That is what parliament is for. We owe it to South Australians to consider all the implications of government policies and to pass legislation that considers the interests of all South Australians, not just the interests of a few.

The final thing that I will say is to thank those members and staff who came along yesterday to the briefing that I convened to hear an alternative point of view to that being promoted by the minister. I know not all members could attend, so just briefly one of the people who addressed MPs was a fourth-generation farmer, Bob Mackley, from the Wimmera.

When reflecting on the Hon. David Ridgway's comment that a fence should be enough, what he showed us were photos of the fence that had been completely knocked over by the GM canola in flood conditions, flooding onto the neighbour's property, contaminating the neighbour's property, travelling distances of hundreds of metres. Mr Mackley talked to us about the efforts he had to go through to try to clean up that mess and the division that it caused in the community. He described how he had previously been on friendly terms with his neighbour but this GM contamination spoiled everything.

Members also heard yesterday from Dr John Paull from the University of Tasmania. He is a renowned environmental scientist and expert in organic agriculture. He is the editor of the peer-reviewed Journal of Organics and has presented around the world on this topic. Members also heard from Mark Gower, the general manager for NASAA Organic. That is the certifying body. That was the session for MPs, and later in the evening they were joined by even more experts. We had Dr Judy Carman, a director of the Institute of Health and Environmental Research, and also Robert Rees, the agricultural economist. Robert's contribution was particularly important because he has worked in this industry for government for many years.

The take-home message from all of these people, in both the public forum I convened last night and also the briefing session for MPs, was that the moratorium serves South Australia well. It will serve us even better in the future if we embrace the opportunities that it affords and we must have rocks in our head if we thought lifting it was a good idea.

The government's position of allowing GM crops does come with a range of hidden costs. Those costs and the implications of GM crops have not been properly addressed, and the government is so far refusing to address them. If that remains the stand-off, waiting until the current moratorium expires in 2025 and a possible change of government before then may be the most likely outcome. Certainly, keeping the moratorium in place until 2025 would be an outcome the Greens would certainly support, but for now the best that we can do is to disallow these regulations and then debate the government's bill when it eventually reaches us from the Assembly.

The council divided on the motion:

Ayes 10

Noes 7

Majority 3

AYES
Bourke, E.S. Franks, T.A. Hanson, J.E.
Hunter, I.K. Maher, K.J. Pangallo, F.
Parnell, M.C. (teller) Pnevmatikos, I. Scriven, C.M.
Wortley, R.P.
NOES
Dawkins, J.S.L. Hood, D.G.E. Lee, J.S.
Lensink, J.M.A. Lucas, R.I. Ridgway, D.W. (teller)
Wade, S.G.
PAIRS
Bonaros, C. Darley, J.A. Ngo, T.T.
Liberal Vacancy

Motion thus carried.

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