30 July 2001
Commission fails to address GE Food Safety issues
Green Party MP and Safe Food Spokesperson Sue Kedgley today said she was deeply disappointed that the Royal Commission
has not made any recommendations that would address consumer concerns about the safety of GE food or ensure New
Zealanders can avoid eating GE food if they want to.
Ms Kedgley said the Commission has sidestepped key issues such as the lack of any independent or long-term testing of
genetically engineered foods in our food supply, and have put short-term economic considerations ahead of long-term
health, safety and consumer choice issues.
"The Commission says 'banning GE foods would compromise freedom of consumer choice' but then proceeds to compromise
consumers' freedom of choice to avoid GE foods by saying that mandatory labelling would be too 'costly and complex to
administer'," she said.
"The Commissioners acknowledge the lack of comprehensive labelling of GE foods was a key concern of submitters, but fail
to recommend mandatory labelling to meet these concerns, or even extending labelling to cover take-away foods, foods
sold at point of sale, or to close any other loop-holes in the proposed labelling scheme because it would be expensive."
The Commission proposes the establishment of a voluntary GE free label for food that is 100 per cent GE Free, but has no
recommendations as to how such a label could be administered, policed, or protected against fraudulent use, Ms Kedgley
said.
"The Commission fails to take a precautionary approach to GE foods, and instead reaches the simplistic conclusion that
they consider it 'unlikely' that genetically engineered foods that have been assessed by the Australia New Zealand Food
Authority 'will have harmful effects'," she said.
The Commission does suggest random testing of GE foods to ensure compliance with standards, and regular testing to
ensure there are no unauthorised GE ingredients in our food as part of Total Diet surveys.
"The problem is that these Total Diet Surveys are only held infrequently - about every four to six years. Such
infrequent testing or monitoring is totally unsatisfactory and will do nothing to reassure consumers that unsafe,
unauthorised, illegal GE food is not being sold in New Zealand," she said.
The Commission has not proposed any measures or regulations to cover GE crops that are fed to animals.
"Not only does the Commission expect that more and more GE food will be imported, but it proposes that we should proceed
to plant GE crops here so that even New Zealand grown food will not be guaranteed as GE-free."
ENDS