Most Australian states have started reviews of their 2004 GM Acts which carry a de facto moratorium on growing genetically modified (GM) crops. The pro-GM lobby has responded with an orchestrated campaign.
Liberal insider Guy Pearce’s website, High and Dry, tells how the Howard government’s climate change policies became captive to the "greenhouse mafia" because of an ideology of neo-liberal economics. A ‘GM mafia’ has captured the Federal political scene and is pressuring State GM Reviews.
"In the absence of consumer take-up of its products, selling stocks has become a biotech industry lifeline", stated The Wall Street Journal in 2004. In ‘Biotech's dismal bottom line: More than $40 billion in losses’, it spelt out the immediate GM agenda.
Australian State governments been caught up in a religious type rapture over biotech promises of silver bullets. They have become naïve investors seemingly unaware of biotech economic strategies. Industry lobbyists such the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) and its PR arm the Australian Environment Foundation have egged them on.
More importantly, big long-term profits for biotech companies will come through monopoly control of the food industry.
To achieve this, government mechanisms have been white-anted. In Australia, it means implementing the biotech led Trade Related Intellectual Properties (TRIPs) Agreement of the WTO and manipulating both the Office of Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) and Food and Safety Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ).
Australia has implemented patenting laws that benefit GM seed companies. These are reinforced by the US-Aus Free Trade Agreement. (Pharmaceuticals are under the same threat). Farmers will be forced to buy GM patented seed and consumers will have no choice but to buy GM food in a monopoly system. The TRIPs office within DFAT has proved reluctant to reveal who forms Australian policy on patenting at WTO meetings.
The next step is to have federal bureaucracies help implement biotech monopoly of the food chain. The OGTR was set up to guarantee health and environmental standards but is headed by Dr Sue Meek who formerly promoted biotech based industries. The OGTR has approved GM crops without regard for the ‘precautionary principle’. This lack of caution is evidenced by the GM contamination of Australian canola seed.
GM contamination of the crops of conventional breeders and organic growers suits the long-term economic goals of the biotech companies; to undermine economic rivals. The OGTR is only restrained by State GM Acts of 2004 which have shown