Failing to recognise Europe’s role as standards setter for gene edited foods would set NZ up for needless trade losses .
Economic growth is the stated objective behind radical new law on gene technology. Yet that’s not what is prioritised in the Gene Technology Bill and an accompanying Cabinet paper.
Instead, these texts show the priority is to deliver growth to a narrow branch of applied science.
The bill is uncontentious regarding medical and lab work, but outdoor use is a completely different set of risks. And there the bill does not even provide the most basic protection needed for our food export income – ensuring we don’t get out of step with key trading partners and the global standards setter.
The problem is encapsulated in a Cabinet paper that says government isn’t even interested in looking at the potential impacts of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) beyond what physical science has to say about them.
And it specifically excludes consideration of trade impacts in spite of high levels of consumer resistance to GM foods – also known as gene edited foods: “Including trade and market access issues in the risk assessment will shift the balance of the regulatory regime towards a balancing of interests and away from the scientific management of risk” it says.
Earth to ministry: balancing overall interests is exactly what democratic governments need to do to maximise economic welfare for the nation.
Prioritising the interests of one subsector over that general welfare is not just a political problem. It inevitably leads to reduced economic growth relative to what could have been – because the proposed framework does not allow a search for the optimal mix of costs and benefits.
That’s part of why the Regulatory Impact Statement that accompanies every bill put to Parliament has boxes to be filled that ask what the costs and benefits will be.
It was a bit of a giveaway when literally no estimates were provided there about what economic gains could be expected from this bill. So, no meaningful cost benefit analysis and completely inadequate industry analysis.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment authors concede their regulatory impact statement “does not likely meet the level necessary for high quality regulatory analysis”, and only “partially meets the criteria necessary for Ministers to make informed decisions on the proposals”.
Yet the basic structure of the bill has glided on even after major food exporters pointed out in submissions that there are international market realities New Zealand cannot alter with a change of its domestic law – no matter what the bill’s architects believe consumers ought to think about GM food.
Most major exporters and their associations spelt out three common demands: take account of market impacts, provide traceability of all GMOs, and have all regulatory decisions ‘Made in NZ’ (rather than some largely made offshore).
They particularly referenced Europe, which is the de facto global standards setter for GM food: “Meeting EU gene technology requirements is also used as a baseline requirement by some large international customers irrespective of market” said the Dairy Companies Association.
Europe is also in the process of revising its GMO law, and what we know so far is that the results will look nothing like what New Zealand’s bill outlines.
The most obvious difference is that while Europe and New Zealand start from very similar law, the EU is not touching the structure of its statute while New Zealand is proposing a radical purge.
The purge is not just about removing requirements to take economic impacts into account: it would seriously compromise environmental standards, regulatory independence, regulatory accountability, and even regulatory sovereignty.
But the action as far as developers are concerned is all about which GMOs will be exempted from full regulation – and whether they can hold their patent rights without being forced to label the products as GMOs.
On this, New Zealand is so far off the pace it’s simply embarrassing.
While Europe has been focused on trying to agree what conditions would apply to any GMOs exempted, this was not even an issue MBIE considered worth raising with the New Zealand Cabinet.
Despite over two years work by Europe’s ministers, they still cannot get a deal with Europe’s Parliament on this highly contentious issue. And when that parliament last voted on it, the position was that exempted GMOs were all to be labelled and traceable through all stages of production. There would be no place to hide.
Further, no GMO could be exempted and still be protected by patent rights.
This is because enough European parliamentarians understand why developers want the stronger property rights that patents offer plant breeders and only GM techniques can deliver.
They understand in particular that those patents on GMO crops automatically extend under EU law to all crops that express the same function – even if bred conventionally. This would make it much harder to profit from a conventionally bred innovation, or sustain an existing one.
In short, it would create a systemic bias against conventional crop development, fuelling concentration of corporate seed ownership still further.
Yet in New Zealand, not a whisper of the patents issue from MBIE. Not a suggestion of conditions that might be imposed on exempted GMOs. And no recognition in the Cabinet paper that the proposed basis for exemption in the EU is completely different to that in the bill.
This mismatch of basic approach sets New Zealand exporters up for GMOs being exempted in New Zealand but remaining illegal foods in Europe, unless approvals for use are sought in advance. And the bill does not provide the traceability mechanisms needed to the reduce the risk of accidental contamination.
Even trace levels of such illegal foods have cost food producers globally huge amounts of money in product recalls and damages.
Reason enough you would think for recognising the EU’s importance as the market standard setter. Yet the bill is instead modelled on the Australian regime for GMO regulation.
The Cabinet paper says this is to “support alignment with our nearest trading partner and encourage research collaborations” – as though “nearest” somehow equates to most important.
Australia is an out-lier in regulatory terms – a jurisdiction keen to brave the deregulatory frontier, like the bill’s architects. And the bill proposes not just taking its structure but also its sweeping set of exempted GMOs into New Zealand law without separate assessment or analysis of local considerations.
If the government believes that exemptions are a reasonable approach, in spite of the evidence that the technologies remain experimental, at minimum the bill should specify that no GMO could be exempt unless it was also exempted by the EU and on the same conditions that apply in Europe.
The exemptions issue is one of a host of serious problems with the bill, and this one alone ought to be sending red lights flashing in the coalition’s control room – about the bill as a whole.
As it is due to be reported back to Parliament at the end of the month following select committee hearings, there is not much time left for decision-makers to head off the reckless ride this bill sets up.
The pragmatic way forward remains to ‘split’ the bill in order to allow medical and lab work to be covered under new law, while deferring changes affecting the outdoor use of GMOs until policy work can be completed to a standard that matches what’s at stake.
This article was first published by Newsroom on 18 July 2025. Simon Terry is Executive Director for the Sustainability Council of NZ.
