"I hope [Prime Minister] Helen Clark gets the message. We don't want our food tampered with. It's just not fair for future generations. They don't have a say and I'm here today for them."
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Beast is unleashed but what now?
02 September 2001
By GEOFF CHAPPLE and ROBYN MCLEAN
MONDAY, 03 SEPTEMBER 2001
http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,924733a11,FF.html
An organiser of the big GE-free protest admits the movement is in disarray as it considers how it handles the potent political force it has unleashed. The "Keep New Zealand GE Free" rally in Auckland yesterday, attended by at least 10,000 people, ended with participants being urged to write to MPs and get active.
Organiser Steve Abel agreed the movement needed more co-ordination. "We had a big expression of public opposition but there's lots more stuff that has to be done," he said. "We were hoping to announce a date for a national rally but we couldn't get agreement at a national level. This whole thing has blossomed since the royal commission report and we haven't had the time.
"In Auckland the coalition has come from all angles - Alannah (Currie) has come at it from the celebrity angle, others from different angles and we have to settle our approach."
The protest was the biggest in New Zealand for 20 years - and those who braved steady rain in Queen St had a simple message: we don't want genetic engineering here.
The marchers, who travelled from as far away as Wellington and Kaitaia noisily condemned plans to introduce GE.
Old political campaigners such as artist Pat Hanly looked at a new generation of protesters with a seasoned eye and wagged his head. "They seem so confident - all the new people, sons and daughters and stuff. It's much more visually smart this time," he said.
"I've never seen anything like this," said Wellington's Sara Bosley. "I hope Helen Clark gets the message. We don't want our food tampered with. It's just not fair for future generations. They don't have a say and I'm here today for them."
When the march reached Aotea Square, the crowd listened to speeches by Maori representatives, Greenpeace and horticulturalists.
One of those who was not allowed to speak was Green's co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons, who stood by in the rain as others pushed the anti-GE message.
The most high profile opponent of the royal commission's recent cautious consent for GE experiments in New Zealand, Fitzsimons was denied the microphone by rally organisers while other Green MPs, Sue Kedgley and Keith Locke were also not called on.
The coalition decided it did not want to be identified with any political party and Abel, himself a Green Party member, had to break the news to his party leader. "She stayed pretty cool about it. I supported her speaking, but the Greens are just one group within the coalition, which is 16 or 17 strong. We were overruled."
Fitzsimons put on a brave face when asked about the decision to prevent her from speaking. "It wasn't about speeches, it was about the show of strength," she said.
But the show wasn't all one way - pro-GE advocates, including scientists, joined the front of the march to give the other side of the debate.
One observer said the group of about 17 was later jostled and given a police escort away from the march.
Prime Minister Helen Clark, who spent much of yesterday dealing with the Tampa refugee situation, said she hadn't had time to pay the protest much attention. "The government is taking three months to respond to the royal commission report. We're going through each of the recommendations. We're going to consider it throughly," she said.
Clark said if she were a private citizen she would not have joined yesterday's march, but would have waited to see what the government's decision was. "We're not GE free now. We have quite a significant proportion of research in New Zealand which involves genetic modification technologies."
The Alliance yesterday announced it wanted to extend the moratorium on field trials of genetically modified organisms until they could be proved to be safe. The call comes a month before the voluntary moratorium on genetic modification expires and the government is to decide what to do about the issue. But Alliance leader Jim Anderton said yesterday the party did support continued laboratory GM research and the strictly controlled use of GM in medicines.
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Celebrities strike a pose against GM
01.09.2001 By JOSIE CLARKE
New Zealand News
Musicians adding style to the anti-GM campaign include ave Dobbyn, Bic Runga. Pictures / Mark Smith
A photographic collection of New Zealanders protesting against genetic modification will be used to put pressure on the Government as it decides what to do about the controversial issue. Organiser Alannah Currie said the campaign had drawn together 85 celebrities, doctors, scientists, firefighters, drainlayers - "people who feel really strongly that they don't want genetically engineered crops".
Over the past month, celebrities including Rachel Hunter, Dave Dobbyn and Sam Neill have posed wearing T-shirts designed for the event by Karen Walker, Marilyn Sainty, Zambesi and World in protest against the royal commission report on genetic modification.
The collection includes New Zealanders now living in Sydney and London. Singer Bic Runga photographed actor Lucy Lawless and film director Jane Campion in Los Angeles. "It's global. A lot of people are really worried about what's happening and they want to have their say," Alannah Currie said.
She hopes the collection, titled Up Against the Wall, will be exhibited in Auckland and Wellington at the end of next month to coincide with the Government's decisions about which of 49 recommendations made by the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification it will adopt.
"Hopefully, it will put pressure [on] the Government against taking the commission's recommendations to have field trials in New Zealand."
Many of those photographed are expected to march in today's Keep New Zealand GE-Free public rally. The march starts at Queen Elizabeth Square at noon and will run to Aotea Square, where members of the public will have an opportunity to address the rally.
Alannah Currie, a member of the 1980s British band the Thompson Twins, said she became interested in issues surrounding food technology, and later in submissions presented to the commission, after her sister died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in Auckland last year.
She said she felt powerless after the release of the report, which paved the way for the controlled release of genetically modified organisms.