Corngate probe fails to agree over contamination

3.00pm

The Parliamentary select committee inquiring into the release of genetically engineered (GE) sweetcorn in 2000 has split over findings as to whether there was a coverup in the "Corngate" affair.

Local government and environment committee chairwoman, Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said the committee was split 6:6 on two key issues -- whether the corn was contaminated and whether a "tolerance level" was sought by Government officials.

"My conclusion -- backed by all but the Labour and United Future members of the committee -- is that officials should either have accepted (Melbourne test laboratory) Genescan's conclusion that the seeds were contaminated, or conducted further testing," she said today.

Her comments were made after the committee tabled in Parliament the 250 page report on its inquiry.

"The line-up was five Labour members, plus the United Future member, saying there was no contamination, there was no cover-up," Ms Fitzsimons said.

She said everybody else -- six MPs from four other parties, including the Greens and National -- took a different view.

But the non-government members of the committee were not able to state definitively that there was contamination because information on the tests that could have confirmed this was kept in the Melbourne Genescan laboratory, she said.

Formerly owned by German company, Genescan Europe, the laboratory has since been bought by Agriquality, an SOE spun out of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

Ms Fitzsimons said that the inquiry -- which she instigated -- had been "seriously hindered" because Swiss-based seed company Novartis -- now trading as Syngenta -- had refused to allow the inquiry to question the Genescan staff that tested its corn seeds.

A memo from the laboratory manager had concluded the corn was contaminated but said a breakdown had prevented completion of the tests.

"It is extremely frustrating that after an extensive inquiry, the committee is no closer to knowing what data the Genescan laboratory had in order to reach that conclusion," Ms Fitzsimons said. If the tests had later been completed, the issue of the corn's contamination would have been resolved -- yet no official ever phoned to have the tests finished.

Ms Fitzsimons said that if Syngenta had thought the laboratory data would have cleared its seeds, it would have let the committee have access to it.

The two factions had each included differing views in the committee report, and 10 agreed recommendations for the future.

"A particularly strong recommendation, that we all sign up to, is that the protocol for testing has got to specify that government regulators must have access to all of the lab material, the ability to talk to the people who did the tests and access to all their data sheets," Ms Fitzsimons said.

"It is outrageous that a committee of Parliament could be prevented from getting such simple information".

The inquiry was triggered when author Nicky Hager published his book, Seeds of Distrust, in July 2002 -- 17 days before the general election -- disclosing that thousands of GE sweetcorn plants had been grown in Gisborne, Hawke's Bay and Marlborough from a contaminated, 5.6 tonne consignment in 2000 of seeds from the United States.

- NZPA