Marian Hobbs: Hager confused over GE testing

Nicky Hagar, in his Dialogue article last week, again attempted to justify the wrong conclusions he reached in his book Seeds of Distrust. He broke a basic rule of journalism by making assumptions. He failed to test his theories with balancing views before launching his book in a secret, well-planned marketing blitz. He made no attempt to seek comment from the Government or officials.

Before responding to the allegations, we checked our facts and reviewed the processes that had taken place almost two years earlier.

I gave a considered response. Officials briefed the media. The Prime Minister undertook to release all documentation. The sheer logistics of compiling, analysing and copying the hundreds of pages of documents involved meant they were not delivered to the media until the Friday night.

It is important to remember the following points:

First, the Government never deviated from its policy of zero tolerance for genetically modified contamination in seed imports. If any GM is detected, the shipment will be rejected. Also, it is impossible to test 100 per cent of seeds in a shipment because the act of testing destroys the seeds. Therefore, scientists have to take a representative sample.

Faced with a test that had an ambiguous result, authorities took the only responsible course - to undertake further tests. None of these tests showed evidence of GM contamination. We now know the likely cause of the ambiguous result. The seed originally tested came from a bag that had been opened and mixed with talcum powder.

Mr Hager has confused "tolerance" and "confidence". The size of the sample taken for testing determines the level of confidence the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries can have that it is representative of the whole shipment. If no GM is found, the ministry can say with a high degree of confidence that there is no detectable GM contamination.

Dr Bas Walker, of the Environment Risk Management Authority, did refer on November 24 to "positive tests results that could hardly be ignored". But further tests were carried out after November 24. Five samples were tested at Crop and Food on November 28 and all tested negative.

The Royal Commission on Genetic Modification was fully briefed on the corn issue and the Government's report is publicly available.

There was no cover-up. I held a news conference in December 19, 2000, where a statement was distributed detailing the case. That public statement was not written by a public relations agent. If Mr Hager actually reads the press release, he will see the corn is mentioned specifically.

The Evening Post newspaper used the "scare" in the headline of its story that day.

Making a public statement earlier on a scare such as this would have been highly irresponsible, risking damage to the New Zealand economy. We have many unfounded scares - foot and mouth, for example - which we do not publicise until the full facts are known.

When the facts were known in the corn case the media was told and the royal commission advised.

There was no cover-up. The facts do not support Mr Hager's claims.

* Marian Hobbs is Environment Minister.

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