Science settled? Hundreds of scientific reports on safety not enough? Dozens of fully independent reports from highly credentialed institutes not understood by Mr Carpenter? Not needed? When the world and Australia face huge challenges to grow more food with limited land and water, and a global food crisis? Just where is Alan Carpenter's Vision and Leadership apart from buzz words on his glossy campaign brochures?

Man playing God again. If you take the world gross national product and divide it by the the number of people you will see there is no shortage only a distribution problem.

Tony Burke has shown now he has not a clue about agriculture with statements like this. You can grow non GM crops with the same yield under organic management without the risk of consumers being the test pilots instead of rats. We have a huge market advantage not having GM crops so why throw this away for a political grand stand? I suggest he invests in agriculture and this may change his mind.

Tony Burke has done his homework and is not being ambushed by the current fad of celebrity chefs and their fellow travelers. It is only a couple of decades ago that we had celebrity chefs and others collectively explaining the massive dangers that microwaving posed to human health, and that those very chefs would never use microwaves in preparing the nations culinary delights. The GM debate will go the same way. There will always be some who will reject it as some still do microwaves, and that is their right. To highlight this fact, the world’s biggest food company has called on European policymakers to reconsider their opposition to genetically modified crops. "You cannot today feed the world without genetically modified organisms," Peter Brabeck, chairman of Nestlé, told the respected Financial Times in an article published on June 22 2008.

"We have the means to make agriculture sustainable in the long term. What we don’t see for the time being is the political will."

The European Commission says biotechnology could help to solve the food crisis and officials say they are frustrated that national governments often block their recommendations for GM approval. "Their resistance stems from how Europe feels about GMOs," said a spokesman.

Few GM strains of crops have been licensed by the EU. This has left European farmers angry about the increasingly high prices they are being forced to pay for non-GM animal feed. In Britain, the National Farmers’ Union has asked leading supermarket chains to drop GM-free requirements from all save organic food. Farmers are finding it difficult to source non-GM soyabeans to feed poultry flocks because Brazil, the leading exporter of non-GM soya, has been planting more GM crops. Mr Brabeck said European concerns over the health risks of GM were unfounded, given that such foods had been eaten safely by Americans for decades. "It is one of the safest technologies that we have ever seen – much safer than bio or organic or whatever else is fashionable in Europe," he said. Organic food crops, which typically yield less than GM food crops, were "a nice treat for those who can afford it", he said.

In a related article, Sir David King, the UK government’s former chief scientist is one who says GM is the only technology available to solve the world food price crisis. These quotes from the biggest food company in the world (EU based) put paid to the claims that Europe will continue to openly reject GM crops. They, like us, import massive quantities of GM grain each year which effectively exports the environmental and economic benefits to their global competitors.

So far Premier Carpenter's ban has so far not yielded one premium for WA growers, although he proudly boasts that a Japanese delegation (at no premium) bought 3500 tons of GM free canola because of his ban. But the other 700,000 tons we grow this year will be sold and blended in Japan with the 1.6 million tons of GM canola they buy from Canada. So WA growers are forced to use old environmentally unsustainable technology even though Peter Brabeck says GM is…."one of the safest technologies that we have ever seen – much safer than bio or organic or whatever else is fashionable in Europe." Thank goodness Tony Burke has his feet on the ground - maybe Premier Carpenter should get out and do the farm visits that Tony Burke is noted for. Then we might see some sensible policies and not just "whatever is fashionable in Europe".