Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to indicate that the Labor Party will not be supporting the Greens amendment. Without recanvassing my speech in the second reading debate, I think there are protections in place in the legislation that ensure that, if any emergency dealing were to proceed, the appropriate level of scrutiny would be applied. Here I am speaking personally: I am not a person who thinks that GMOs are the bee’s knees and that we should pursue them in any great way but, if we are faced with the option of using a GMO that could potentially save many lives or the environment, I think we would do our community a disservice by not using that option. I think that allowing this legislation to proceed with the conditions that are applied is the only reasonable thing to do. If there is the potential that a GMO could clean up an oil spill or assist in a pandemic of some sort, and we as a legislature do not allow that opportunity, I do not think we are doing the right thing by our community. But we have to make sure that the protections are in place and that the risks are managed, and I believe that the legislation covers that.