NZ Outdoors and Freedom Party submission for the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Amendment Bill

Executive Summary

NZOFP opposes the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Amendment Bill.  While we acknowledge the Bill’s stated objective of attempting to improve efficiency and certainty, we submit that it overcorrects in favour of administrative efficiency and applicant certainty at the expense of public notification, statutory safeguards and New Zealand’s GE-free Market position.  We are also concerned the Bill creates a backdoor risk by weakening HSNO safeguards in parallel with the proposed Gene Technology regime.

New Zealand's food and fibre exports are forecast to reach $64.3 billion in the year to 30 June 2026, with NZIER research for Organics Aotearoa New Zealand estimating that environmental release of GMOs could reduce New Zealand’s primary-sector export revenue by up to $10-20 billion annually through loss of our GE-Free premium and market access. This national asset warrants protection for our economy.

The submission raises five concerns. First, clause 85 makes public notification discretionary rather than mandatory for several key categories of new organism applications, undermining a core safeguard for GE and gene-edited organisms. Second, new section 34B (clause 42) creates a pathway from conditional release to release without controls, governed by criteria set outside primary legislation. Third, clause 4(5) removes the retrieve-or-destroy requirement from the field-test definition, weakening the no-contamination standard. Fourth, new Part 5A allows organisms to be reclassified as "not new organisms" by notice, bypassing the ordinary Part 5 new-organism approval pathway with limited public input. Fifth, AI-assisted biotechnology must not be treated as low-risk by default.

NZOFP recommends the Bill be rejected, or amended to restore mandatory notification, retain statutory safeguards, and remove Part 5A. We request an oral hearing.

Introduction

The NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party (“NZOFP”) is a registered political party under the Electoral Act.

Its focus is to advocate for and empower New Zealanders’ health, wellbeing, and connection with nature and to protect the fundamental rights of New Zealanders and our environment from abuse of power.

The submission is made in relation to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Amendment (HSNO) Bill.

Many in our party have a longstanding interest in risks associated with Hazardous substances and new organisms.

Our party leader, Sue Grey, holds a BSc in Biochemistry and Microbiology, an RSHDipPHI, and an LLB (Hons), and has completed a Master’s-level paper in Biotechnology Law. She specialises in complex emerging medico-legal issues, human rights, and risk assessment and allocation. A core concern for NZOFP is who bears the risk when there is uncertainty, gaps in knowledge, or incomplete information in assessing both medical and environmental risks. We submit that this risk should not fall on the public. The public should not be made to bear the unintended consequences of haphazard innovation or weak regulatory safeguards.

Daymond Goulder-Horobin, who has assisted with the preparation of this submission, has a Master of Business in Economics and a Graduate Diploma in Data Analytics.  His interest in the Bill is focused on transparency, natural justice, regulatory accountability, the implications of AI-assisted mass innovation, and the economic implications of policy that concerns New Zealand’s GE-Free position.

We oppose the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Amendment (HSNO) Bill. We do so as a party committed to protecting New Zealanders’ health, environment, welfare and economic wellbeing. Our opposition is not simply a rejection of innovation or a cry into the void. Rather, in our view, the Bill weakens the safeguards New Zealanders rely on to keep our environment and country safe and creates pathways that lack meaningful, transparent oversight. It seems to make it easier to introduce Genetic Engineering (GE) pathways and even complements the Gene Technology Bill, which we also fully oppose. One might even say this is a backdoor to that Bill.

NZOFP recognises that the HSNO Act plays a foundational role in protecting our environment and economy from the risks posed by hazardous substances and new organisms. If anything, we believe it should be strengthened and that a safety-first approach should be given full priority. However, the HSNO Bill seems to go in the opposite direction, weakening the framework through amendments that reduce public notification, remove statutory safeguards, and create discretionary pathways that neither Parliament nor the public can meaningfully oversee.

In particular, anything involving organisms needs to take into account our market position as a leader in GE-free organics and products.  This is a national asset to be considered and protected.  The latest Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries (SOPI) forecast from the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) puts food and fibre sector export revenue at $64.3 billion in the year to 30 June 2026.  A New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) study, commissioned by Organics Aotearoa New Zealand (OANZ), estimates that the environmental release of GMOs could reduce New Zealand’s primary-sector export revenue by up to $10-20 billion annually, primarily through reduced consumer demand, the erosion of New Zealand’s GE-Free export premium and point of difference, and the weakening of our position in the growing global non-GMO market.  Thus, even as an estimate, this is enough to warrant caution, and NZOFP stands fully behind our GE-Free image.

The reason is that, like many New Zealanders, we are concerned that this Bill may serve as a backdoor pathway for allowing GE into our economy, not by openly passing the separate Gene Technology Bill, but by weakening the HSNO safeguards that currently govern how new organisms are assessed, notified, released, and kept under enforceable controls.

NZOFP is also concerned about the consultation process. We have heard that some organic producers, farmers, growers, independent experts and the wider public have not had the level of engagement that should occur before a bill of this magnitude. A bill that may affect new organisms, public notification, conditional release, field testing, and future biotechnology should not be advanced through a narrow or rushed process.

The Bill should also not be treated in isolation. The Regulatory Impact Statement for the HSNO amendments expressly links the proposals to the proposed new Gene Technology regime, including changes required to ensure consistency with that plan and to better align the HSNO new organisms regime with it. This confirms that there is some level of interaction with the Gene Tech Bill, which we strongly oppose, and thus the Committee should assess the HSNO Bill in the context of wider gene technology liberalisation, not as a standalone technical amendment.

We acknowledge the Bill’s explanatory note, which sets out the four main policy objectives developed in response to the Ministry for Regulation’s Agricultural and Horticultural Products Regulatory Review. These are: streamlining application processes, improving certainty for applicants, supporting risk-proportionate decision-making and public participation, and strengthening compliance and enforcement. These sound good on the face of it; however, NZOFP submits that the Bill ultimately overcorrects against its own commitment to public participation in pursuit of efficiency and certainty. We believe that greater efficiency should not come at the cost of mandatory public notification and statutory safeguards set by Parliament in the Act itself, nor should it come at the cost of New Zealand’s GE-Free market position.

For this submission, we focus on the following five key points to highlight our concerns and reasons why this Bill should be rejected:

• Retain mandatory public notification for outdoor work and releases.
• Do not allow conditional release to become release without controls
• Retain the field-test definition and no-contamination safeguards
• Do not allow Part 5A to become a pathway for organisms to be treated as not new organisms without full public scrutiny.
• Ensure AI-assisted biotechnology and future genetic technologies are not treated as low-risk by default.

NZOFP submits that lawmakers should take a safety-first approach to this nature of science, and stay on the side of being true to nature and embracing our GE-Free branding and market position, and further embracing the spirit of being all natural.  Innovation must be tempered, greed and delusions of grandeur left at the door, and real safeguards must be put in place.  Our submission will show the need for a safety-first approach.

Retain mandatory public notification for outdoor work and releases.

NZOFP takes a very strong view of public participation and believes that when plans are made in the public interest, there should be no “optional” public notification, but rather mandatory public notification. The public has a right to know. Too often, we have seen the public interest understated and neglected, and we campaign for transparency in our messaging.

This Bill is no different. Clause 85 of the Bill replaces current sections 52 to 53AA of the HSNO Act, including the public notification section. New section 53(2) would state:

“The Authority must consider whether there is likely to be significant public interest in the application or decision, and if the Authority considers that there is likely to be significant public interest, it must publicly notify it.”

NZOFP is concerned that clause 85, and this specific section, changes public notification from a statutory requirement for key categories of applications to a discretionary decision by the Authority. This is particularly concerning for applications involving new organisms, including applications to import for release or release from containment under section 34, conditional release applications under section 38A, and applications under section 40 involving the containment, development, or field testing of new organisms.

Our party stands by the GE-Free movement, not only for the economic advantage but also for the right to GE-Free farming and agriculture. For genetically engineered organisms, gene-edited organisms, gene drives, synthetic biology, and future biotechnology, public notification is not a procedural luxury. It is a core safeguard. The GE-Free status of New Zealand depends on prevention, transparency, and the ability of affected people to participate before a decision is made. Farmers, growers, exporters, organic producers, seed producers, iwi, councils, local communities, and consumers may all be affected by decisions that permit outdoor development, field testing, conditional release, full release, or release without controls.

To put it bluntly, once an organism is released into the environment, the risks are not confined to the person applying; a range of things could happen. These may include pollen drift, seed contamination, effects on neighbouring production, loss of organic or GE-Free status, market-access risk and environmental harm. These are matters of public interest by their nature. They should not depend on whether the Authority forms the view that significant public interest is “likely”.

Supporters may claim that we need to “Streamline” applications for those deemed “low-risk” or “light-touch”. We submit that outdoor development, field testing, conditional release, full release, or release without controls of new organisms creates risks that extend beyond the applicant and are inherently matters of public interest. Outdoor development, field testing, and any form of release are not merely technical matters. The risk is not confined to the applicant. It may affect the people around them, neighbouring growers, organic producers, and so forth. We do have a reputation to protect, our reputation for a GE-Free economy. Therefore, Parliament should deem these categories to have significant public interest by default.

Thus, we believe that Clause 85 should be amended so that public notification of outdoor work, field tests, conditional releases, full releases, and any release without controls of new organisms remains mandatory. Where an application involves GMOs, gene-edited, gene-drive, synthetic biology, or other future biotechnology organisms, the Committee should deem significant public interest to exist inherently, based on potential impacts.

Do not allow conditional release to become release without controls

NZOFP is also concerned about clause 42 of the Bill, which inserts a new section 34B into the HSNO Act. This new section would allow a person to apply to the Authority for approval to release a new organism that is already subject to a conditional release approval.

This is a significant change, and for us it raises a major red flag. Conditional release approvals exist because controls have previously been considered necessary. These controls relate to matters such as monitoring, location, duration, and other measures designed to manage the risk of things going wrong. If these controls are under consideration for removal, they should not be treated as merely technical adjustments. Doing so may change the organism’s actual risk profile, and again, the consequences for the public and our organic sectors are put at risk.

Furthermore, we take issue with the fact that the main substantive criteria for this pathway are to be prescribed by EPA notice, rather than set out in primary legislation. While EPA notices are a form of secondary legislation, removing controls from a new organism is too significant to depend mainly on criteria set outside the Act itself. Parliament should set the minimum safeguards in primary legislation, including mandatory public notification, a New Zealand-specific risk assessment, published reasons, and clear limits on when controls may be removed. Essentially, the public and the Committee are being asked to approve the pathway before seeing the full criteria that will govern it, which, to us, is completely backward. For decisions that may result in organisms being released without controls, the minimum safeguards should be visible, debated and approved by Parliament at the time the law is passed.

In the context of genetically engineered organisms and a whole host of biotechnology systems that could be coming, our concern is not merely that the Bill directly approves these technologies. Rather, it is that the Bill may create a procedural pathway by which an organism first enters under conditional release and may later move to release without controls through a less visible process.

In keeping with our GE-Free image, this is a major issue. Our GE-Free economy branding relies on prevention, transparency, and enforceable controls. The consequences of organisms being released and unforeseen harm occurring may be difficult or impossible to reverse in some cases.

Thus, NZOFP submits that the government ought to take a safety-first approach when deciding which clauses to pass. We take the safety-first approach to its intended purpose by submitting that any move from conditional release to release without controls must be subject to mandatory public notification, as before; furthermore, there should also be a full New Zealand-specific risk assessment, published reasons, and clear statutory safeguards. Truly, it should not be possible for controls to be removed unless the public has first had a meaningful opportunity to be heard.

Retain the field-test definition and no-contamination safeguards

Thirdly, we point to clause 4(5) of the Bill, which would amend the definition of “field test” in section 2(1) of the HSNO Act by deleting the words:

“but from which the organism, or any heritable material arising from it, could be retrieved or destroyed at the end of the trials”.

This wording is important because it sets out a core safeguard, namely that a field test is not simply an outdoor experiment. Rather, it is a trial conducted under conditions similar to the environment into which the organism may be released, on the basis that the organism and any heritable material can be retrieved or destroyed at the end of the trial. In plain English, a field test may take place under conditions similar to the real environment, but it must still be possible to retrieve or destroy the organism and any heritable material from it when the trial ends.

NZOFP acknowledges that the Bill’s explanatory note states that this matter is directly addressed, in relation to genetically modified organisms, by section 45A(2), which requires controls for a GMO field-test approval, including the requirement that the organism and any heritable material be removed or destroyed. However, clause 4(5) still weakens the clarity of the Act by removing the retrieve-or-destroy requirement from the general definition of “field test”. That safeguard should remain in the definition so that the core distinction between a field test and a release remains clear for all organisms, future technologies, and borderline cases.

For us, definitions matter. They ultimately set the legal boundary of what something is. For the definition of field-test, the current wording places the no-contamination principle at the front of the Act and makes it clear to applicants and relevant stakeholders. Removing that wording creates confusion, makes the protection harder to find, and less clear over time.

Again, as we bang on the drum repeatedly, it seems that at multiple points our GE-Free value has been forgotten. The relevant risk, as we mentioned, is that if materials aren’t committed to being recovered after a field test and persist, there is a chance, however small, that the effects may extend beyond the trial site and affect neighbouring production, organic or GE-Free status, and so forth. We are quite stalwart in our defence of this concern, and we urge the Committee to keep this in mind in its findings.

NZOFP submits that the Act should retain clarity and brevity and leave the statutory expression of the no-escape and no-contamination standard intact.  This wording should remain in the definition of “field test” so that all affected parties including the public and the courts can clearly distinguish between a controlled field test and a release.  Removing it risks weakening the Act’s clarity over time.

Do not allow Part 5A to remove organisms from HSNO scrutiny by notice.

NZOFP is concerned about clause 114, which inserts a new Part 5A into the HSNO Act. This Part is titled “Notices: risk species and organisms that are not new organisms”. The operative provision, new section 73F, reads:

“The Authority may, by notice,

1. prescribe a species, or a subspecies, an infrasubspecies, a variety, a strain, or a cultivar, as a risk species for the purposes of section 2A(1)(aa); or
2. prescribe an organism as not a new organism for the purposes of this Act; or
3. authorise a specified person to prescribe, by notice,
4. a species, or a subspecies, an infrasubspecies, a variety, a strain, or a cultivar, as a risk species; or
5. an organism as not a new organism for the purposes of this Act.”

The guidance note then states:

“See sections 2A(2)(a)(iii) and (b)(iii) and 25C(1) and (6) in relation to the effect of an organism being prescribed as not a new organism.”

New section 73I also states that, in deciding whether to prescribe an organism as not a new organism, the authorised maker must consider:

1. whether the organism has formed a self-sustaining population in New Zealand:
2. whether any person is attempting to manage, control, or eradicate the organism under any Act:
3. all submissions and comments received about the relevant proposal or application in response to notification and any consultation under section 73G.
   
    

NZOFP acknowledges that Part 5A contains some limited notification and consultation mechanisms. However, we submit that these mechanisms are insufficient, given, in our opinion, the legal effect of prescribing an organism as “not a new organism”. While the Bill provides for notification to certain government agencies and consultation with persons considered directly affected in certain circumstances, this is not the same as mandatory public notification. Part 5A may allow an organism to be removed from the ordinary Part 5 new-organism approval pathway through a notice-making process, rather than through the usual approval process with full public notification. A decision of this nature may affect stakeholders who may not be identified at the start of the process.

This is a significant power.  Whether an organism is a “new organism” is not a minor technical matter.  We believe that Part 5A is a backdoor risk because it may allow the Authority to avoid the ordinary HSNO approval pathway not by approving a new organism, but by deciding that the organism is no longer a “new organism” at all.  For GE, gene-edited, synthetic biology, AI-assisted, or future biotechnology organisms, our analysis suggests that classification decisions could have the same effect as deregulation and should therefore require the same measures that we have discussed in this paper.  

NZOFP ultimately believes that Part 5A needs to be removed, as this power goes to the threshold question of whether the HSNO regime applies at all.  If an organism is prescribed as not being a new organism, the ordinary safeguards around approval notification, conditions, and even enforceable controls may be avoided or reduced to an unreasonable extent.  That is too significant to be left to a notice-making pathway.

NZOFP is not satisfied that targeted consultation with those considered directly affected is sufficient for decisions of this nature. The release or development of such organisms, especially those involving some level of GE, may affect people who are not obvious or who have not been screened at the beginning of the process. Our New Zealand farmers, organic producers, and, to an extent, consumers may all be affected by a classification decision that removes an organism from HSNO scrutiny.

For the reasons we have set out, NZOFP recommends the complete removal of Part 5A from the Bill.  We do not consider the administrative efficiency gains to justify creating such a backdoor, and the Committee should, as we have stated, take a safety-first approach.

AI Concerns around liberalisation

Everything culminates in this new future we find ourselves in, where AI seems to be on an exponential rise and pushing the boundaries of innovation to their limits. NZOFP recognises that in the brave new world, the new AI rush is something we ought to take advantage of; we must do so in a way that puts safety first.

In particular, this needs to be reflected in legislation going forward, recognising that many applications for new organisms can be handled at scale through rapid experimentation. AI-assisted design, gene-editing and high-throughput experimentation may make it faster and easier to design, screen and develop new organisms or genetic constructs. This increases the importance of clear statutory safeguards more than ever. If the number, complexity, or novelty of applications increases, the answer should not be to make public notification discretionary, remove important wording from definitions, or allow controls to be removed through criteria set outside the Act.

A key principle we hold is “Do not assume that companies are rational.” Many of these AI companies are looking to be the next billion-dollar company, an industry in which we’ve seen absurd valuations and ruthless shredding of code to reach that plateau. It’s important to recognise that this sector of the environment, dealing with new organisms, is one of the most volatile; if something goes wrong, it really goes wrong here. We continue to stress that, at all times, a safety-first approach must be taken.

This is why NZOFP is concerned about liberalising the HSNO framework at this time. The Bill is being considered in an environment where future biotechnology may move faster than regulators, affected communities, and Parliament can easily keep up. That makes transparency and public participation more important, not less.

NZOFP submits that any application involving AI-assisted organism design, synthetic biology, gene editing, gene drives, or other future biotechnologies should not be treated as low-risk merely because it falls within a prescribed class or pathway. The Act should require a full New Zealand-specific assessment, public notification for outdoor work or release, and clear consideration of contamination, environmental, cultural, economic, Treaty, and market-access risks.

Safety-first innovation is the only way to keep pace with other countries while maintaining a sense of sanity in our progress.

Recommendations

NZOFP recommends that the Bill be rejected and reconsidered using a safety-first approach.

If the Committee intends to proceed with recommending that the bill be passed, we recommend that it be amended as much as possible to retain clear safeguards for new organisms, outdoor testing and future biotechnology, and for New Zealand’s GE-Free position.

Specifically, we recommend the following:

• Amend clause 85 so that public notification is mandatory for outdoor development, field tests, conditional releases, full releases, and any release without controls of new organisms. Public interest should be the default position on matters such as gene editing and related issues.
• Clause 42, which governs the new section 34B, should be deleted outright. At a minimum, any application to move from conditional release to release without controls must include mandatory public notification, a comprehensive New Zealand-specific risk assessment, published reasons, and safeguards set by Parliament in the Act itself.
• Delete clause 4(5) and retain the current HSNO Act definition of “field test”, including the requirement that the organism and any heritable material arising from it can be retrieved or destroyed at the end of the trial.
• The Bill should make absolutely clear that any outdoor work, field testing, conditional release, full release, or release without controls involving future biotechnology cannot be treated as low-risk merely because it fits a prescribed class, tier, or pathway. It needs to be subject to a full assessment of contamination, environmental, cultural, economic, organic-sector, commitment to the GE-Free position, and any market-access risk that could arise.
• Remove Part 5A from the Bill outright and remove the potential backdoor from the Bill so that no genetically modified, gene-edited or any future biotechnology organism can be prescribed as not a new organism and thereby circumvent the safeguards in the Act.
• Recognise New Zealand’s GE-Free reputation as a national asset that must be protected, not weakened by faster or less visible approval pathways.

NZOFP submits that innovation should proceed only where the public can see the risks, participate meaningfully, and trust that enforceable safeguards are in place.

Thank you for reading our submission. We request permission to give an oral presentation to the select Committee.

Best Regards
NZ Outdoors and Freedom Party