The coalition government’s flagship plan to lift New Zealand’s effective 30-year ban on the use of genetic technologies outside the laboratory has stalled inside Cabinet, with ACT, New Zealand First, Labour and the Greens all pulling the bill in different directions and a date for its second reading still unconfirmed.
The Gene Technology Bill, first introduced in late 2024 by then Science Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins, was a centrepiece of National’s coalition agreements with both ACT and New Zealand First. It would replace parts of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act and stand up an independent gene technology regulator within the Environmental Protection Authority to assess applications for the outdoor release of gene-edited and genetically modified organisms.
The original timetable had the legislation passed by the end of 2025. Instead, it now sits with Cabinet ministers thrashing out amendments, after a Health Select Committee report in October last year recommended it proceed despite around 15,000 public submissions, most of them opposed.
The portfolio itself has been a moving target. Collins has announced her retirement from politics this year, as has former Health Minister Shane Reti, who briefly held the science role. The bill is now in the hands of incumbent Science Innovation and Technology Minister Penny Simmonds, who also carries Tertiary Education and an associate role in Social Development and Employment.
Simmonds told RNZ in a written statement that work on the bill was still live. “Negotiations and subsequent policy changes as a result of the public select committee process, are ongoing,” she said. “We’ll have more to say soon.” New Leader of the House Louise Upston has separately confirmed that the government still intends to progress everything on the Order Paper.
The flashpoint inside the coalition is the bill’s proposed Māori Technical Advisory Committee, which would feed into the new regulator’s decisions. ACT has told RNZ it sees “real opportunity in liberalising gene technology” and argues that modernising the law would let agricultural exporters and scientists keep up with overseas competitors. But the party does not support the proposed advisory committee in its current form, warning that the bill “risks tying up that scientific and economic potential in co-governed bureaucracy”. ACT says discussions on the structure are continuing and that decisions on timing and scope still rest with Cabinet.
New Zealand First has signalled an even harder line. The party agreed in its coalition deal to support liberalising genetic engineering laws while ensuring strong protections for human health and the environment, and its office has confirmed to RNZ that it will continue to withhold support unless major changes are made on that front. Party consultation is ongoing.
Leader Winston Peters set the tone in November when he addressed several hundred people who had gathered on Parliament’s steps to oppose the bill. “What we’ve said is this Bill’s going nowhere unless we’re satisfied and we’re confident that it doesn’t represent any danger,” Peters told the crowd. “Let me tell you, if the Bill can’t be fixed up, it won’t be going ahead.”
With its own coalition partners pulling in opposite directions, RNZ understands that National has opened talks with Labour to try to find a workable majority for the second reading. Labour science spokesperson Reuben Davidson said the party agreed the existing rules were outdated, but argued that the current bill bundled together widely supported applications such as medical research and industrial fermentation with far riskier outdoor field releases.
“This reform was an opportunity to modernise our framework in a way that strengthened New Zealand’s science system, honoured Māori perspectives, safeguarded our primary industries, and protected our international reputation,” Davidson said. “The Bill, in its current form, does not achieve that balance.” He added that “if the government was functional, the Bill would have been passed already, but the coalition can’t agree on outcomes”.
The Green Party remains opposed in principle. Spokesperson Steve Abel has labelled the bill “radical de-regulation” and warned that releasing GMOs into the open environment would put at risk the GMO-free positioning that New Zealand exporters have leaned on for decades.
That positioning matters commercially. Organics Aotearoa New Zealand puts the country’s organic sector at around $1.2 billion, with roughly half of that coming from exports. Hawke’s Bay grower Scott Lawson of Lawson’s True Earth Organics told a recent industry webinar that the wider public still did not appreciate how exposed organic producers would be once outdoor releases were permitted. “People are aware of the organic industry, but they’re not aware of just how big we are, how important we are, and how vulnerable we are to the impact of something like this Gene Tech Bill,” he said. “Because once released there is no containment, no co-existence.”
Supporters of the bill, including the original architects in National, have argued the opposite case, that gene-edited crops and livestock could lift productivity, cut emissions and let New Zealand science keep pace with Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, all of which have moved to lighter-touch regulation of gene editing in recent years.
For now, the practical question is arithmetic. Without ACT and New Zealand First fully on board, National needs either to redraft the bill enough to bring its own partners back in, or to lock in an opposition deal with Labour that survives the run-up to November’s general election. Either path means more delay, and a growing risk that the legislation does not reach a second reading at all this term.
Voters who want to weigh up where each party actually sits on gene technology, the wider science system and the role of Te Tiriti partners in regulation can compare positions using our 2026 election voting tool.
What do you think — should New Zealand keep its GMO-free positioning, or is it time to let gene-edited crops and livestock into the paddock? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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