David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Many people will have heard of the Luddites, 19th century workers in the wool and cotton mills of West Yorkshire and Lancashire who were so fearful of industrialisation that they wrecked machinery and burnt down mechanised mills. Some of them were punished with transportation to Australia, a nation that benefited profoundly when those mills were able to process our wool in ever larger amounts. History showed the original Luddites were wrong to be afraid of the future. We now know the Industrial Revolution lifted millions of people out of poverty in a way that revolutions seldom do. People in countries that embrace new technologies, including Australia, have become healthier and wealthier as a result.

But every generation spawns a new pack of Luddites. Luddites claimed that metal ploughs would contaminate the soil, that train passengers would not survive travelling at high speed through tunnels, that gramophones would make musicians redundant, that microwave ovens would make food carcinogenic and that vaccines were responsible for autism. The philosopher Bertrand Russell once noted that every great advance in civilisation has been denounced as unnatural. This might explain why the Luddites of today call themselves environmentalists.

Unfortunately, while Luddites were once just ill-informed vandals destroying workplaces in their own communities, now their ideas are sometimes lethal on a global scale. Consider, for example, the case of genetically modified food. In the 20-odd years in which GM crops have been grown, there have been no documented negative human health effects. There are many documented benefits, including better nutrition, more efficient production and reduced use of pesticides. But unfortunately this has not stopped South Australia and Tasmania, our two worst performing economies, from banning GM crops.

At a global level, one GM crop, golden rice, has the potential to save millions of children who suffer from vitamin A deficiency. Its yellow appearance is due to genetic modification to contain betacarotene, a source of vitamin A. A single bowl of golden rice can supply 60 per cent of a child's daily vitamin A requirement. Regular white rice does not provide this vital nutrient, and, with three billion people worldwide reliant on rice, there are many cases of deficiency. The British medical journal The Lancet reported that, in total, vitamin A deficiency kills 668,000 children under the age of five each year. Those children who do not die often go blind. But Luddites such as Greenpeace have been openly denying the benefits of golden rice for at least 15 years with complete disregard for the science and in full knowledge of the impact of vitamin A deficiency. The consequences have been catastrophic. While golden rice is now finally being grown overseas, some eight million children died while Greenpeace was successfully campaigning against it. Greenpeace has also played a part in preventing famine-hit people in Africa from accepting food aid that was genetically modified. These modern-day Luddites are willing to let other people pay the ultimate price for their attitudes.

The government of India indicated recently that it would suspend Greenpeace India's foreign funding licence on the entirely sensible grounds that the organisation works against the country's economic interests. This follows the stripping of Greenpeace Canada's charitable status in 1989. Australia should follow suit. Greenpeace Australia demonstrated that they are philistines when they destroyed wheat crops being trialled by scientists from CSIRO here in Canberra. In a world where millions still lack adequate nutrition, improving food quality and productivity must be one of the most noble of scientific pursuits. Yet Greenpeace Australia sought to ensure that research is not carried out. They should be stripped of their charitable status: They should reap what they sow.