Western Australian GM ban becomes election issue

Western Australia's moratorium on genetically modified crops has emerged as a potential electoral liability for state premier Geoff Gallop's ALP government, as the state approaches a cliffhanger election.

With public opinion polls placing the Coalition parties ahead of the ruling Labor government, WA's shadow minister for agriculture, Paul Omodei, has said a Coalition government would review the moratorium if it wins office on February 26.

Omodei and WA agriculture minister Kim Chance will debate the GM crops issue and the moratorium at a Rural Media Association 'pre-election sundowner' at the BankWest Tower in Perth on February 10.

Dr Ian Edwards, who chairs the agbiotech advisory group of Australia's biotechnology industry association AusBiotech, said AusBiotech had been working closely with the Western Australian Pastoralists' and Graziers' Association, to make the moratorium an election issue.

Edwards is the founder and former CEO of WA wheat-breeding company GrainBiotech Australia, which will begin field testing a new GM salt-tolerant wheat near the town of Corrigin in May.

He said AusBiotech had been helping the association to lobby both Omodei and Chance for an immediate end to the moratorium, so WA farmers can "get on with business".

He said WA, with Tasmania, had been the most militant of all states on the GM issue, because of the ALP's dependence on Green preferences if it is to be re-elected.

But Edwards said all the indications in WA now pointed to a Coalition victory. "The opposition is already speaking out courageously on controversial issues like... GM crops, and has put the government on the defensive. Increasing numbers of farmers now support GM crops," he said.

Interviewed last week by The West Australian newspaper, Omodei -- a Liberal MP -- said he did not want to create a political brawl over GM crops, but that the Coalition would review the issue if elected.

Max Trenorden, leader of the National Party in WA, said the debate was likely to be reopened sooner than many thought.

Chance, whose party banned commercial planting of GM herbicide-tolerant canola and all other GM crops last year and declared WA a GM-free zone after a period of consultation, said it was "very unlikely" any GM crops would be released during a second term of a Labor government.

Edwards said he believed anti-GM sentiment was waning in rural WA, despite continuing efforts of anti-GM activists to convince farmers that GM canola and other GM crops are an unacceptable threat to their livelihood and the state's 'clean, green' image.

The anti-GM movement has been active in WA, under the leadership of Julie Newman, an organiser for the Network of Concerned Farmers. The NCW is a rural lobby group established two years ago with funding and administrative support from Greenpeace Australia Pacific.

"We're now getting the WA Farmers Federation moving from an anti-GM stance to sitting on the fence," Edwards said. "They agree there is a need to review the moratorium at least annually.

"We're putting factual information out, in concise form, to groups like the Pastoralists' and Graziers' Association. If the moratorium is to be lifted, the pressure has to come from farmers.

"Our position is that the anti-GM NGOs know they are losing the battle globally. The area of GM agriculture is soaring -- it increased by 20 per cent last year, an area larger than the total area planted to wheat in Australia. The area planted to GM crops worldwide is equal to 15 times the total land surface of Great Britain, and there have been no adverse effects. Our message, in a nutshell, is that this moratorium is politically based, and there's no justification for it -- it's time to drop the notion of a blanked moratorium and work on a case-by-case basis.

"We're pointing out to farmers that Bill Crabtree, an independent agricultural consultant in Northam, has estimated that the ban on GM canola is costing WA growers AUD$170 million a year. We're asking them how much longer they're prepared to forego that sort of money.

"Bill Crabtree has been leading WA farmer tours to Canada to see GM canola growing, and to hear first-hand from their Canadian counterparts why 80 per cent of Canada's canola crop is GM."

If a Coalition government is elected in WA, and lifts the moratorium, it would be the second state in Australia, after Queensland, to allow commercial planting of GM crops. Currently, Queensland grows only GM cotton, but it is developing GM lines of sugar cane, pineapple and pawpaw.