Govt set to review court ruling on GMOs
Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith looks set to move against a High Court ruling this week allowing regional councils to control the release of genetically modified organisms ( GMOs) under the Resource Management Act.
He says that the Government would review the appropriateness of councils being able to regulate GMOs in their areas.
He cited a liver cancer vaccine trial taking place in Auckland Hospital which he said would be banned under the Auckland Unitary Plan, along with future treatments involving GMOs.
Smith said “councils did not have the technical expertise, resulting in regulations that had unintended consequences”.
“The further problem is that there are no biosecurity controls between councils, so having different rules on what organisms are allowed in different districts becomes a nonsense,” he said.
Smith dismissed a claim by Dr Kerry Grundy, who convenes an intercouncil group on GMOs, that the Auckland Unitary Plan and other councils’ planning documents would not affect medical applications at present or in the future.
The new Auckland Unitary Plan contains a provision banning the general release of GMOs for outdoor use.
Other councils proposing to have or that already have a prohibition on GMOs in their resource management plans are the Northland Regional Council, the Far North District Council, the Whangarei District Council and the Hastings District Council. Grundy told the Science Media Centre yesterday that the plan provisions applied only to GMOs released to the environment or outdoor field trials of GMOs.
Smith said he had received legal advice about the Auckland Unitary Plan’s meaning of outdoor use and containment.
“When a patient receives the liver cancer treatment and the genetically modified organism is used to treat it, when they leave the hospital that is going beyond ‘ containment’.”
Nick Smith, Environment Minister