Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am listening—very much so. It is strange that some people who might be happy to endorse the science on climate change show less regard to the scientific evidence and the rational inquiry on other matters such as gene technology. Genetic modification is a term which, of course, in some quarters, causes great alarm, but it is a name for progress that humans have been engaged in for many thousands of years. It's the history of agriculture, which has long involved genetic modification. It's the process of altering organisms' genetic make-up, and, of course, it happens in the selective breeding of plants and of animals. It is how drought-resistant and pest-resistant crops have been developed. It is how the nutritional yields of foods have improved enormously. GMs take place in the laboratory rather than in the paddock. It is a principle no different from what has happened in selective breeding. What we have here is more precise than the traditional methods have been, in terms of similar goals.

In much more than 20 years of commercial use, the scientific consensus is that GM techniques have posed no greater risk to human health or the environment than similar products derived from traditional breeding or selection processes. That's the scientific consensus—and I'm referring to the assessments from the World Health Organization, the Royal Society of London and the United States National Academy of Sciences. There is no natural order that is being destroyed or disrupted. There is no Dr Frankenstein's monster that is being fabricated. There are no monstrous creatures being created in the dead of night.

What we have here is the situation where humanity, for centuries, has been developing better products, and, of course, better strains of food and of animals, and that is still the case. The difference now is that modern technology gives us the capabilities that selective breeding in the past had not. In modern GM technology, gene functions can be added, deleted or turned off. Specific genes that determine particular traits can be implanted into another organism. That is then referred to specifically as a genetically modified organism.

That occurs not just in agriculture. That's the situation that occurs in medical advances, where the progress has been absolutely enormous. GM technology has been used to produce new vaccines, new antivenenes and new antibodies. Insulin, used for the treatment of diabetes, has been synthesised using GM bacteria. People ask, 'What's the use of this stuff?' Insulin! It's not just the major pharmaceutical companies that benefit from insulin; it's hundreds of thousands of Australians that benefit from the medical advances that come from this science! As to the product of insulin, I suggest that there might be a few senators that use this stuff every day.