2016-08-16
MR BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — My Greens colleagues and I do not oppose this bill. The bill enacts minor changes to Victoria's regulatory system for gene technology in keeping with the intergovernmental gene technology agreement of 2001. Under that agreement states and territories must have a consistent regulatory framework for any dealings with genetically modified organisms. This bill makes minor amendments to how we deal with them following a national agreement on what those changes should be. None of these changes in any way affect the right under that agreement for any state or territory to create genetically modified (GM) and genetically-modified-free zones, either in part of their state or in the whole state, which may very well be for reasons of marketing and branding of a Victorian product, a Gippsland product or a Wimmera product as coming from a GM-free zone.
However, currently the Productivity Commission is considering whether those rights should be overturned so the states will be forced to allow GM crops to be grown even if it is against that state's marketing advantage. Tasmania and South Australia have made submissions that they want to remain GM-free, so they want to retain those powers. Victoria should also be pushing to retain the right to go GM-free in the future, even though GM crops are currently grown here, because of the emergence of new problems with GM crops. We should retain the right to protect our farmers' income and the state's reputation.
So far I am unable to find a Victorian submission to that particular Productivity Commission inquiry, which is in fact dealing with the whole of the regulation; it is a wide inquiry looking at the regulation of agriculture. South Australia has made its submission and Western Australia has made its submission. I was looking through the list of submissions before and I could not find a Victorian submission or even whether the Victorian government has a view on any of the matters being covered by the review.
One example of the problems that GM technology can cause is the current temporary ban by Japan and South Korea on wheat imports from the USA because of contamination from field trials of GM wheat. Currently there is no commercial GM wheat grown anywhere in the world that I am aware of, but there are field trials both in Australia and overseas. In field trials in Washington state, USA, Monsanto has confirmed that GM wheat has jumped the fence to an adjacent farm. It has no idea how it got there — no idea.
If you have spent any time in farming communities, one thing you ought to know is the important relationships you have to have with your neighbours by keeping your problems on your side of the fence. In fact I can remember leaving a gate open once when I went to pick up some tools only 100 feet away. I walked through the gate and I thought I would be turning back and coming back anyway a minute later, so it really did not matter — and from the top of the hill up there, half a mile away, I could hear my uncle yell out at me, 'Shut that gate!'. If your cows start wandering into your next-door neighbour's property, you are going to have a bad reputation pretty fast.
But the way it works with genetically modified crops is that the company owns the gene and through that owns the cell and the organism if it wants to; however, it does not need to take any responsibility for the appearance of that crop in another farmer's paddock. In other words, their ownership propagates but their responsibility diminishes rapidly. Rather than suing farmers and getting themselves into a rather large public relations mess, as they did in Canada, they are now stepping back from the situation, putting the liability onto the individual farmer who buys their seeds and letting farmer sue farmer. But heaven help you if you take some of their seeds and grow them; then immediately they call in their marker.
I do not want our farmers to face import bans simply because Monsanto has a contamination problem on another farm. On the one hand it looks like a temporary problem. US trading partners will be given a new test so they can check for contamination and the trade will resume. It is pretty easy to work out if you have got Roundup Ready canola seeds. You just plant them, then spray them with Roundup and see if they die or not, so the test is a reasonably easy thing to implement. The problem is that whenever those tests find more contamination, trade stops again. Japan and South Korea are among our top 10 export destinations for wheat, and farmers cannot afford the loss of those markets.
Currently South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory remain GM-free. They have a marketing and price advantage because of that. Even within Victoria, where GM canola has been grown since 2009, there is a price advantage to farmers of growing a GM-free product. According to the Weekly Times some new varieties of canola were developed in Horsham recently by Cargill Australia. These varieties are high in oleic acid, which makes them healthier and more stable. The biggest market for the new varieties is big fast-food restaurant chains because the oil is good for deep-frying. Two of the varieties are genetically modified; one variety is GM-free. The company buys the crops back from the growers via its grain marketing arm and processes the grain into oil at facilities, including one in Footscray. So in fact it is a bit like a controlled experiment for the price premium for a GM-free product.
According to the Weekly Times of 1 June this year, the contract for the conventional high oleic acid canola varieties is $668 per tonne, which is a premium of $118 above other conventional varieties, whereas the equivalent Roundup Ready varieties only attracted a $30 premium above other GM canola. Clearly the customer demand, even at fast-food restaurants, is enough to create a price premium for a cleaner, safer, greener product.
There has been a low take-up rate for GM in Victoria — —
[Speech was interrupted.]
Mr BARBER — Well, it is the opposite of choice, is it not — through you, Acting President — because it is the non-GM farmer who carries the burden of proving that their product is non-GM? As I have just explained, there is no penalty on Monsanto or even the people they sell the seed to if contamination occurs into another paddock. The onus — and I am sure Mr Ramsay understands this from the celebrated case in Western Australia — and the loss actually accrue to that person who wants to be GM-free. That is despite the latest figures from the Agricultural Biotechnology Council of Australia, which show that in 2015 only 13 per cent of Victoria's canola was genetically modified. Yet there is no way at the moment to certify to the standards that some countries are asking for that your crop is GM-free, because it could be blowing off the back of the truck as it passes on the way to the silo and your crop could easily be contaminated in that way. In New South Wales it was only 11 per cent, and nationally the figure we are given is about 10 per cent. The biotech council actually says 22 per cent nationally, but it only includes WA, Victoria and New South Wales in the national figures. The Labor Party supports GM protection in Western Australia, which makes me want to turn my gaze over here to the left and ask, 'What is wrong with you lot?'.
In Western Australia my Greens colleague Lynn MacLaren and the Labor opposition have been trying to stop their Parliament overturning their Genetically Modified Crops Free Areas Repeal Bill 2015, which is their gatekeeper bill. It allows the minister to designate an area in which GM crops cannot be grown. The debate has been remarkable because of a contribution from the ALP shadow Minister for Agriculture and Food, Darren West, the only farmer in their Parliament, who spoke for over 6 hours. He knows the problem firsthand, because a load of GM-free canola from his cooperative was downgraded. Somehow a bucket of GM canola was dumped on the top. The whole load was downgraded at a cost of $1300 to the cooperative. So where is the choice in that, Mr Ramsay? That Labor member spoke quite eloquently both in the debate, part of which I have read, and also when he was later interviewed, when he spoke about his experience as a grain grower and legislator.
So the Greens would like to reintroduce the moratorium on the commercial release of genetically modified crops in Victoria; at the moment that means canola. This is the best way to make sure our farmers' commercial contracts — —
[Speech was interrupted.]
Mr BARBER — Pardon? Through you, Acting President, Mr Ramsay might like to familiarise himself with who the Greens candidate for the seat of Murray was — an irrigation farmer from Shepparton. See, it is more of the same kind of half-baked, rambling, kneejerk, anti-environmentalist statements that come out of the Liberal Party through Mr Ramsay, which, in the process, and on the subject of contamination, contaminate the entire Liberal Party brand. He thinks that what plays out well down at his boozy lunch with his old mates from the Victorian Farmers Federation is somehow going to gain him votes in the rather large and diverse Western Victoria Region.
That policy is the best way to make sure our farmers' commercial contracts are protected. Gene Ethics leads the campaign for a GM-free Australia. They are calling for farmer protection laws to be included in the Gene Technology Act 2006. For a start, maybe there could be some sort of requirement to track the location of genetically modified crops, both in terms of where they are planted and transport routes and storage facilities. I hope the next tranche of mirror legislation in Victoria appears because of a national agreement to protect farmers. It may never be possible to regulate GM crops adequately to prevent the commercial harm to our farmers, which is why the Greens support the precautionary principle and the commercial moratorium in Victorian agriculture.
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