Fed: Aventis fronting Senate committee on GM controversy

AAP General News (Australia)
08-21-2000
Fed: Aventis fronting Senate committee on GM controversy

By Linda McSweeny

CANBERRA, Aug 21 AAP - The company at the centre of a genetically modified (GM) crop
controversy, Aventis CropScience, will tomorrow lobby politicians in a bid to have its
herbicide-resistant canola on sale within two years.

Aventis wants GM canola seeds sold to farmers and is urging federal politicians to
support its bid by voting in the government's planned new GM laws.

Aventis will tomorrow front the Senate Community Affairs References Committee in Adelaide
as senators consider the future of legislation which would, for the first time, regulate
gene technology.

The company has conceded it could have breached laws in trialling the crops, but maintains
an accidental GM crop release at Mt Gambier did not harm people or the environment.

GM canola from its South Australian trial is alleged to have been dumped at Mt Gambier,
posing a possible threat of cross contamination of traditional canola plants.

Aventis blames a lack of proper laws for the incident.

"While some minor and technical breaches of the GMAC (Gene Manipulation Advisory Council)
'recommendations' may have occurred, these were found to have caused no harm to human
health or the environment," Aventis said in its submission to the inquiry.

"Difficulties in this incident arose primarily out of the lack of clear and unambiguous
regulatory arrangements, including ambiguity in the GMAC's requirements for conduct of
the trials concerned.

"The main lesson to be learned from the incident is the need for legislation of the
kind before the Senate committee."

It has also urged politicians not to allow the states to opt out of the laws, saying
the recent Tasmanian move which would declare all GM plants pests, was wrong.

"The Tasmanian government's actions seem to us to be ill-considered ... and all on
the basis that the government says it wants to proceed cautiously," the submission said.

"That was already the case: the GMAC had specifically assessed our proposals against
their existing criteria."

Aventis said its herbicide-resistant canola, which it wants released to farmers in
2002, was already popular in Canada, with 75 per cent of it herbicide tolerant and half
of that GM.

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KEYWORD: GENETIC

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