Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I respond to two things in this motion. The first is representations from my constituency, which are always very important to all members of this House on both sides. The second is a profound disappointment with regard to genetically modified products and crops which the community that I have met with in the last few weeks believed the federal government had promised to them before the election. That promise is unfulfilled. It is not fulfilled. It was a profound disappointment in the community, but we began a process after the representations, and what a process and what a journey that turned out to be. That journey was one of consultation with my community. The journey was one of not driving the process but listening to the community as they came to their elected member and spoke to me about the issues that were of concern to them. Those people were keen that we take a direct interest. In this whole process there was not only I who took the journey but also my staff. I have never mentioned my staff before, but Ken Mitchell, Jennifer Paproth, Kevin Carmody, Margaret Burridge and Millie Maclean took an interest in this whole process of consultation about genetically modified crops and the concerns that our community has.

Who did we meet with? Of course, we went not just to a town hall for a visit but into the kitchens and the homes and onto the beef farms and the dairy farms. We met with people from all walks of life and with all sorts of characters. From Kardella to Tarwin Lower, we met with interested parties. I said I would not drive the process, but I was keen that, if it were going to be a worthwhile process, it be driven by the participants: Jessica Harrison, Bev Mustchin, Robert Vickers, Yvonne McRae, Elly Wishart, Jo Hogan, Mary, Lyn Chambers, Syd White, Lee Storti, Jim Seabrook, Brian Enborn and Colin and Jenny Dowel, who had a great story about their own dairy farm. They found that they had calf losses that were not usual to their 120-year-old dairy stud farm, so they began to look at the changes that had taken place on the property and the changes they needed to make to look after the farm in a more natural way. They have completely reversed the loss of their calves on that property. It is a great story. We met with Julie-Anne Trease—her interest in sustainable agriculture extends to the leadership group that I spoke to a few weeks ago—councillors like Nigel Hutchinson-Brooks, Meredith and Gil Freeman of Kardella, Becky Banks, Rosemary and Graeme Trease, Suzanne Wightman, John Beamish, Ron and Bev Smith, on their organic dairy farm down at Fish Creek, Shelley Riddle, Bernice Mook, Emma Mook, Tim and Liz Farrell, Sue Svenson, Carylon Johns, Jackie Dargaville, Rob Roberson, and Shane and Ann Bundy. What an experience it was to go to Shane and Ann’s beef farm and to listen to their presentation.

It is important as we raise the issue to hear what the constituents are saying. When we came to this place for ‘Science meets Parliament’ we met some very pro GM professors. Immediately, we asked them to return to the electorate with us. We said to the professor from Monash: ‘Come with us back to the electorate. Come with us to a vegetable property on the peninsula.’ We probably should have told Greg Hunt before we went down there. We said: ‘Come with us. Look at how we grow the vegies and then meet the people who have these concerns.’ We went from the peninsula all the way down to the Koonwarra Sustainable Communities Centre at Koonwarra and met with another 30 people. We had interaction between the scientists and the people so that their concerns could go straight to the scientists.

On that day, Robert Shepherd actually joined us. He was in his lab at Monash University with his white jacket on and I said, ‘There is a seat in the car for you; do you want to come?’ He hopped straight in the car and came with us for the day. It was really great to have someone that young with us. I have to say that meeting those amazing young honours students at Monash University working in this area of gene technology was a great eye-opener for me.

Where are we now on the election promises? One of the questions was: why was the issue of gene technology and chemical residue regulation or public health systems excluded from the scope of the inquiry that the government has set up and which the minister has described as a major independent review of Australia’s quarantine and biosecurity arrangements? The message here was that the community believes that the federal government had made a promise to them for a wide-ranging review of the whole GM process—how it affects our soils, how it will affect the interaction between farms. We have written a report on this and it will come out of the office once it is cleaned up. The issue is: where are we going with this whole issue and why wasn’t it included in this review that the government has set up? It is called a major independent review of Australia’s quarantine and biosecurity arrangements, but we have had comments like this from people like Dr Rosemary Stanton on Crikey on 29 February:

Nick Evans, editor of BioTechnology News.net complains that opposition to GM foods is coming from a “hodgepodge of dieticians, geomorphologists, epidemiologists and anti-gm activists”. As a nutritionist who has called for transparency and more appropriate testing of the current crop of GM foods, he may well be including me in his “hodge podge”. In fact, I have repeatedly stated that I am not against GM technology as such. Like three of his four “hodge-podge” groups, I am a scientist, and as a scientist, I object to the method of restricting tests on the current GM crops by claiming they are “substantially equivalent” to other crops and allowing only industry-funded testing (independent scientists have great difficulty obtaining GM seeds for testing). For all we know GM foods may be entirely safe. They obviously don’t kill you, but the fact that the current crops have been released without adequate testing and are unlabelled (so the poor epidemiologists would have little hope of trace any ill effects) means we have no scientifically valid evidence to make such an assumption. Why are GM companies so against independent scientific testing?

There is a place here for the scientists on one side and the scientists on the other side to come together so that people like me who are not scientists in any of these fields can try to get an understanding of where we are at. Rosemary Stanton also asked, ‘Why was this left out of Australia’s quarantine and biosecurity review? It is a major review and it was left out.’

The chefs of Australia have come out and said in an article titled ‘Chefs boiling mad over GM foods’:

More than 50 of the country’s top chefs, including Neil Perry and Kylie Kwong, have signed a GM Free Chefs’ Charter to protest against the introduction of genetically modified food crops to Australia. They called on the NSW and Victorian governments to reverse their position on growing GM canola and demanded thorough labelling of all food products that contained GM ingredients.

Chefs have also said:

In the US and the EU, and across the world the great growth area is in clean, green food products. We believe that it is not wise to give up our global, unrestricted GM free marketing advantage, particularly when the long term implications of GM food manufacture and consumption are not yet known.

Then we go to the Western Australian Premier, who was so concerned about it. In ‘Gene Ethics backs WA Government call on GM foods’, it said:

The GM giants must prove their GM products are safe before they reach the shelves, so FSANZ should stop all GM food approvals until real safety tests rule out allergies, damage to vital organs and links to cancer.

As Premier Carpenter says it is ‘unbelievable and unacceptable’ that FSANZ relies mostly on GM company data to say GM foods are safe to eat.

There is a real concern about the control of seeds across the world. Who owns the seeds? If you look at the price of Roundup and some fertilisers and how they are controlled around the world—I know you will blame China and India for the use of those—the prices have gone up. The price of Roundup has gone up so substantially in such a short time and it is owned by one company.

As we went on the road, it was hard for us to discern what was truth and what was not. But we did realise this was a grassroots issues for people with genuine concerns. It is up to me and every other member of this House to address those concerns. If I as member do not stand up for those people, I ask you, who will? (Time expired)

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