Good afternoon

 

Thank you for your 9 May 2022 email request for information under the
Official Information Act 1982.  You requested information on the
following:

 

 1. All reports and documents held by the Productivity Commission
detailing public sector investment in synthetic
biology/biotechnology/gene editing/genetic modification and/or the
returns on investment by individual New Zealand Crown Research
Institutions.
 2. All reports and documents held by the Productivity Commission
detailing public sector investment in synthetic
biology/biotechnology/gene editing/genetic modification and/or the
returns on investment by individual New Zealand Crown Research
Institutions.
 3. All reports and documents analysing and assessing environmental risk
to New Zealand environment and agriculture from synthetic
biology/biotechnology/gene editing/genetic modification. This risk
could occur:
a) As a consequence of altered regulation;
b) Over the longer term (i.e., it involves long term stewardship
considerations)
c) Following release into the environment;
d) Through genetic alteration of native flora or fauna (this includes
laboratory based effects including unintended insertion of foreign
dna; and includes through unintended events such as via pollination);
e) As an adverse impact to domestic and export industries (including
via offshore detection; and non-tariff barriers) following
contamination from released organisms in New Zealand food export
product to organic and non-organic product

 

Response from the New Zealand Productivity Commission:

 

The Productivity Commission has no documents detailing, analysing or
assessing returns or environment (or other) risks relating to genetic
modification (GM). To date, we have not done any work on this topic,
instead we have looked at reports that have been written by others about
the current GM regulations and their benefits and costs considering the
current state of knowledge about GM. Our conclusions from our
investigations are available in section 10.4 of our final report on
"Frontier Firms: Reaching for the Frontier" available at
[1]https://www.productivity.govt.nz/inquiri...

You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman
regarding the Commission’s response. Information on how to make a
complaint is available

at [2]www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602. If you wish
to discuss our response with us, please feel free to contact me at the
details below.

 

Yours sincerely

Shelley Catlin

show quoted sections