Cool head in a burning debate

PAULA OLIVER a doctor who's not afraid to be the frontman for those who believe our future lies along the path of genetic modification.

It takes a lot to get Dr William Rolleston fired up. The slightly built doctor prefers instead to fight his battles with what he calls well-reasoned arguments.

But since volunteering two years ago to take on the role of mouthpiece for New Zealand's pro-GM movement, Dr Rolleston has found himself at the heart of an unusually fervent national debate.

This is the frontman who passionately argues that GM must be made a part of this country's future. Organics and GM can and should live together, he says. In his measured tone, Dr Rolleston patiently explains that GM is for the good of the country - in every way.

But the 40-year-old father of two confesses to sometimes feeling the odd flicker of anger.

Seated amid the pastoral decor of the Federated Farmers office in central Wellington, Dr Rolleston takes his time - and a lot of prompting - to reveal exactly what it is that riles him.

Huge anti-GM marches down Queen St?

"No."

Celebrity-led T-shirt campaigns?

"No, this isn't an argument about who's popular and agrees with our cause."

So it must be the fact that politicians, including the Green Party, are deciding which path the country will follow?

"That's what we elect them for."

What is it then?

When attending a Christchurch biotechnology conference about a month ago, Dr Rolleston was greeted by a group of about 40 anti-GM protesters.

He watched minister Pete Hodgson engage them in debate, and heard him ask how many of them had read just one volume of the enormous, four-volume Royal Commission report on GM.

"Not one of them put their hand up. That makes me angry," he says, leaning forward.

"It's understandable that the public is scared, because we have people talking about Frankenfoods and potatoes hopping across the street. Why wouldn't you be concerned?"

He pauses. Then continues: "The Royal Commission spent $6.3 million and 14 months listening to all the sides of the debate. It came to an informed, intelligent conclusion - that GM-free was not a viable option for New Zealand. It angers me that people can use Frankenfood-type imagery in a dishonest way to impose their own philosophy on other people."

Sometime before October 31, the Government will announce which string of the GM debate it wants to follow. It could extend the present moratorium on field trials and releases of engineered crops and livestock. Or it could decide to "proceed with caution" - the catchphrase of the pro-GM movement.

But until it says what it is going to do, both sides of the argument have an opportunity to lobby.

Which makes Dr Rolleston's life a very busy one.

Even though he is the proud possessor of a 4047-hectare family farm in South Canterbury, he jokes that some of his friends think he lives in Wellington.

Even though he says he has never feared for his safety, he is reluctant to pinpoint the exact location and details of his family.

He has a business based on purifying high-value protein products from animal serum and milk. They are used in the human pharmaceutical industry, and for vaccine production. He doesn't do any GM, but supplies industries that do.

At times, Dr Rolleston has seemed a one-man band speaking for the businesses and researchers who want to press on with GM. He put his hand up because he was the leader of an industry group known as Biotenz - and because nobody else did.

"When I thought a couple of years ago that somebody had to stand up and say something, and I thought, 'Well, that has to be me', I realised that it was going to be a big job. But I don't think I realised just how big a job it was going to be."

Until two years ago, he was a practising medical doctor.

Educated at Otago Medical School, Dr Rolleston comes from a family that was split between science and medicine.

Politics and law also flow through his veins - a well-known colonial namesake, after whom the town of Rolleston is named, is his great-grandfather.

"I'd always tossed up between doing medicine or science. We had a foot in the town and a foot in the country.

"My father - and I'll tell you this because I think it's important now that we're talking about where I'm coming from and what my ideals are - my father was an avid climber. He had a long period of time on the National Parks Board and the National Parks Authority. He was vehemently protective of our National Parks.

"We have always been conservation-minded. We see ourselves as caretakers of the land."

Envisaging that this revelation will surprise many, he continues: "People expect me to be a guy who has no conservation values at all. But I'm quite the opposite. I think GM gives us opportunities to conserve - and I use the word conserve, not preserve - our natural heritage.

"If we can use these tools wisely, we're all going to be better off."

O NCE ON the subject of GM, Dr Rolleston's arguments gather pace - perhaps a legacy of being almost a lone voice in a swirling, tangled debate.

Some relief came last week when a powerful, newly outspoken ally emerged - dairy giant Fonterra.

Chief executive Craig Norgate raised eyebrows when he indicated that if a moratorium on field trials continued, the country's largest company might need to move its research arm offshore to keep up with industry developments.

AgResearch followed shortly after, expressing "grave concern" that the Government might extend the moratorium.

The pro-GM movement is finding its feet. But is it too late to get the message across?

"The difficulty is that you can't put a rational point of view across in a soundbite. It just doesn't work. That's why we had the Royal Commission."

So why do toad genes need to be put into potatoes?

"I know it sounds like scary stuff. But you'll probably find that about 40 per cent of the genes in a potato are actually the same as the genes in a toad. We all share genes. What they did was take a protein which was a frog protein, and made a synthetic gene based on the information. They later found that that gene existed in the plant world anyway."

Crops can be modified for various reasons. Take, for example, Hawaii's papaya crop. Dr Rolleston says it was almost wiped out by a virus five or more years ago. Using a technique that took a gene from the virus and put it into the plant, the crop was effectively immunised.

"The argument is always going to be, 'Well, that's terrible, now we're eating the virus gene'," he says. "But the response to that is, 'When you were eating papaya before, you were eating whole viruses. Billions and billions of them were infecting the papaya'."

He can be very convincing. Holding a copy of the 1500-page Royal Commission report, he can find in seconds what he needs to back up an argument.

And before the opportunity comes to interrupt him, Dr Rolleston wants to get just one more point across.

Should the Government decide to proceed with caution, it doesn't mean that anyone, any time, will be able to release GM material.

Typically, he backs up his statement with a detailed explanation of the six safety steps that must be met before experiments can continue.

"What those steps say is that if you're going to release a crop in New Zealand, you're going to have to release a bloody good one. You're going to have to release one that people feel comfortable about, and one that adds some real value for New Zealand."

It's all about a case-by-case evaluation system, he emphasises.

But now he has to go. He's got to be part of a lunchtime consultation meeting as the Government ponders which way to lean.

We need him for a photo shoot, and he asks that we take him out of the stuffy office environment and put him outdoors, where he wants to spend more of his time.

"Perhaps we can go to the Botanical Gardens. I don't get enough time to get out much these days. But I do love to take them up into the back country ... "

nzherald.co.nz/ge

Report of the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification

GE lessons from Britain

GE links

GE glossary