Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on behalf of the opposition on this bill. The Gene Technology Amendment Bill 2015 makes some technical changes to the Gene Technology Act 2000. The act is the Commonwealth legislation that states and territories have committed to maintaining corresponding legislation so that we have a system of regulation of genetically modified organisms in this country. The Legislative and Governance Forum on Gene Technology, or the forum, which has ministerial representations from the nine Australian jurisdictions, ordered an independent review in 2011 of the Gene Technology Act. The review made 16 recommendations, 14 of which have been accepted by the forum.

This bill implements a number of recommendations as agreed to by the forum. They include discontinuing quarterly reporting to the minister, clarifying the dealings that may be authorised by inadvertent dealings licences and updating advertising requirements for public consultations. They also remove duplicate information about genetically modified products authorised by other agencies from the Record of GMO and GM Product Dealings maintained by the Gene Technology Regulator. This will have the effect of no longer tracking, I understand, the GM products that are approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the Australian Pests and Veterinary Medicines Authority, Food Standards Australia and New Zealand and NICNAS, which is the chemical regulator in our country. The information will need to be sought directly from the approving agency.

The bill also changes licence variation requirements to give greater flexibility to licence holders. It updates considerations required before dealings may be scheduled as notifiable low-risk dealings. It requires emergency dealings determinations to be entered onto the GMO Record as soon as practicable, but removes the requirement that information on GM products be entered as soon as practicable, and it clarifies ambiguous wording. The bill reduces the restrictions on licence variations. The regulator is restricted in how licences can be varied. This is so variations cannot be used to extend the coverage of licences unreasonably. The changes proposed in this legislation will amend the current restrictions on the regulator, which currently may only consider an extension to a licence if the risk assessment and risk management plan for the original licence would still be valid for the new extended licence. In other words, a licence may only be extended if the original risk management plan remains valid.

The new system will also permit the use of risk assessment and risk management plans which had been prepared and used for the permit of a licence rather than the one that is being amended. This will have the effect of an applicant not needing to seek a new licence. The regulator, however, must consider whether the two licences involve similar GMOs or other similar dealings. The modification to the licence variations would give the OGTR, the office, the authority to initiate licence variations. This is a deficiency in the current legislation, as the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator does not currently have authority to amend a licence if it does become aware of any new risks to health, safety or the environment that are not covered by the management plan.

There are also changes to the list of factors the regulator must consider before the dealings can be declared a notifiable low-risk dealing by the Governor-General. This includes removing the requirement that the GMO be biologically contained so that it is not able to survive or reproduce without human intervention. A more effective and efficient way of dealing with this is adopted by the bill and involves looking at the risk profile of dealings on a case-by-case basis, rather than biological containment. This is more reflective of modern scientific understanding and practice than when the provision was first implemented.

When first raised in the House of Representatives, Labor had not formed a view on the elements of the bill due to the technical nature of the issues covered. We therefore sought the views of scientists, industry, the government and the regulator. We were given briefings by the department and the shadow minister's office wants to put on record their thanks to Minister Nash. We have been pleased to hear from stakeholders and the bill includes some incremental and positive changes.

The bill was referred to a Senate inquiry and that report was brought down this week. I want to thank the five submitters who made submissions to the committee—CSIRO, the Office of Gene Technology Regulator, the Australian Academy of Science, CropLife Australia and Food Standards Australia and New Zealand. The Academy of Science said that the amendments are 'conservative and justified' and we agree with that assessment. I can indicate to the chamber that Labor will be supporting this bill.