Denying our farmers a critical modern tool
It is over 70 years since NZ-born Maurice Wilkins shared a Nobel Prize for helping discover DNA. Now over 90% of some major world crops (cotton, soy) are improved with gene editing for better yields, more disease resistance, lower pesticide use.
Products such as insulin and rennet (for cheese making) are mostly GE. But 15 years after AgResearch in Palmerston North developed white clover strains that would greatly reduce methane emissions, while also increasing productivity and stock health, they are still not allowed to field test them here.
An Australian-bred canola makes as much long-chain omega-3 acid on one hectare as in ten tonnes of deep-sea fish, but we can’t grow it. GE is much faster and more accurate than traditional hit-or-miss breeding techniques. In a world where rapidly changing climate requires both resilience and lower emissions, we can’t afford to hobble ourselves.
Outlawing this well-characterised and hugely promising tool is about as rational as the Amish banning buttons and zips.
On the other hand
Plants have been genetically modified by Mother Nature since time began, bees and other insects being the main culprits along with the wind. We had broad beans, scarlet runners and dwarf beans in flower at the same time and ended up with some very strange looking beans due to the bees cross pollinating the flowers.
All were still edible and very tasty, and not a laboratory or scientist in sight.
Then we come to genetically engineered food. This is a totally different kettle of fish. This can involve the introduction of foreign genes. This is the type of genetic alteration that should be vigorously opposed.
The grabbing hands
The tsunami of letters from government and allied workers prompted me to also pen a letter.
When I was working, any increase in salary was always very hard fought for. Any increase in holidays for example was valued at the time involved and a value given to it.
In calculating teachers’ salaries they would be on huge salaries if their holidays were taken into account. Similarly with firefighters, when their actual time working was taken into account, they too would find themselves very well rewarded.
They are very well paid already but don’t seem to realise it. The country is already under severe financial strain (thanks to their Labour Party mates) but these greedies still want more.
Is it any wonder
How come these endless, tiresome complaints, about all and any prime minister, MPs, political parties? It seems nobody is satisfied with anyone, no matter who. Our nation is divided enough, with other Western nations, equally condemning their leaders 24/7. None of them can wave a magic wand. And to expect instant results the day they are in is unrealistic. It appears television enjoys every cent of it. No wonder some don't bother to vote.
Three’s a crowd
I am not into numerology, or other forms of mysticism, but I do have a fondness for the number three and its significant connotations: trinity, trio, triplets, threepeat or other cases of three similar elements. In view of this, it is a great pity that at their recent and much hyped meeting, Donald Trump and Christopher Luxon could not have been joined by Bozo the Clown.
Striking questions about ethics and laws
What is ethics and what is not?
It seems a common ploy in many an ODT article for the writer to claim that such and such an action is either ethical or ethically justified.
Such a claim sounds authoritative. Elizabeth Fenton explains (Opinion ODT 28.10.2025) that the real authority behind striking as an option of last resort is in fact New Zealand employment law.
I presume this means that the question whether or not to strike is not about ethics but about law.
Elizabeth suggests that the real ethical issue behind the health care workers’ strike, is that it is about successive governments’ failure to address workers’ conditions and their impact on patient care.
That is to say, ethics is about parties reasoning their way through issues in good-faith bargaining.
However, when one party defaults, such "ethics" turn into a shouting match, and decisions can only be forced rather than shared.
Bona fide ethics can’t therefore be based on authority, either feigned or delegated, nor on a failure to reason.
It is more likely the glue that makes relationships work in the first place.
In all relationships there is a power differential that must be overcome. This is fundamental ethics.
It involves reconciliation between husbands and wives, political opponents, employers and employees, friends, humans and the environment because these relationships reflect the widely acknowledged cosmic conflict between good and evil, light and dark.
And this government’s ethics by and large aren’t helping solve it.
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