"Releasing GMOs without stringent trials is courting disaster," said Senator Rachel Siewert today, on the release of the Greens dissenting report into the emergency provisions of the Gene Technology Act.

"We do not want to create a situation where the response to an imminent threat could end up producing a far more deadly or troublesome situation than the initial problem."

I thank senators for their contributions to this very important debate. I admit I have been disappointed with the government representatives' input into the debate. It appears from Senator McGauran's input today that he did not listen to the first part of the debate yesterday-and I will come back to that in a minute. But it also appears that the government does not want to support this because there is only so much time and there are only so many resources to deal with things-implying there were not enough resources for the committee to examine this.

I would like to address the house on the Trade Practices Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2005 that we considered last Tuesday. My colleague Senator Milne of the Australian Greens outlined our concerns about the anticompetitive nature of some of the provisions of this bill and the merger provisions but left the collective bargaining elements to me. As I did not get an opportunity to outline the Greens concerns, I would like to take the opportunity to discuss our philosophical approach to that legislation.

There is a clear difference between the views and concerns expressed by consumers over genetically modified crops - and the presence of GM products or additives in the food chain - and the views of the industry.This is obviously a complicated issue with much unknown, made all the more fraught by the relationship between research funding and the interests of the industry involved - and claims and counter-claims.