WA govt waits to be convinced on GM benefits

The Western Australian government is approaching zero hour on the issue of whether to ban genetically-modified (GM) commercial food crops, says Agriculture Minister Kim Chance.

The government leans in theory toward Tasmania's anti-GM stance, but Chance has been playing a dead bat to the issue while waiting for a clear community view to emerge.

"But we can't put it off for much longer... we are getting to the point where crunch time is coming," Chance said in a Friday interview with Australian Biotechnology News.

In practice, the decision could be triggered sometime before the next Western Australian growing season, Chance said.

"The most likely thing that could happen is that the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator could approve the commercial release of canola in Western Australia."

His government could respond to that by declaring all the south-west area of the state a GM-free zone, Chance said: "I don't want to do that because that could be seen in the scientific community as a breach of faith."

On the other hand, the government has a duty to the wider community, which is still polarised on the question of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), he said.

Chance said the scientific community should lift its game and do more than simply dismiss the stance of the anti-GM lobby as "the ravings of lunatics".

"The scientific community complains about scare tactics employed by environmentalists. But the same can be said for the scientific community, which tends to tell only one side of the story.

"By taking up the issues being raised by their antagonists and addressing them in a comprehensive and scientifically justifiable way, [the bioscience sector] would be servicing their interests better than by propagandising.

"Just to say these (the anti-GM lobby) are the ravings of lunatics is not good enough... it leaves me uninformed.

"I find both the for and against cases on GMO are a little one-sided."

Lamenting the lack of certainty and consistent answers for even such apparently clear-cut scientific issues such as cross-pollination spreads from GM crops, Chance complained he could get no consistent answers.

"On the one hand, I'm quoted scientific evidence that gives the spread as 25km, and on the other that it is unlikely to spread more than 100 metres."

Chance noted that WA currently is conducting about 50 GMO field trials through the state, involving cotton, peas, lupin and canola under the OGTR's full disclosure policy, which includes GPS positioning coordinates of site locations.

"We have the most transparent site identification policies of any government in the world," he said. "There has not been a single case of vandalism."

Chance rejected comparisons between Western Australia and New Zealand, where the moratorium on GM crops has become an election issue dividing the Labor Party and their coalition partners, the Greens.

The WA Labor Party has an absolute majority in the lower house without the Greens, unlike the NZ Labor Party.

"We don't feel threatened in the same way [that NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark might feel threatened], because we don't rely on the Greens as coalition partners," Chance said.

"We would like to go forward [on GM issues] with the support of the Greens, but we are not relying on them."