time for your council to be gm free?

Do you want your council to be GM-free?

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Me and Bob Phelps, Director, GeneEthics Network at a recent forum on GM Canola in Montrose

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GeneEthics are holding a workshop on GM-free Zone Councils. I will be speaking at the workshop to provide advice to people who want their municipalities to be GM free.

Free organic lunch and teas
$s to help you travel if you are far away

When: Saturday May 17, 10am - 4.30pm
Where: 60 Leicester Street, Carlton 3053
Melway ref: Map 2B D10

** RSVP essential: call 1300 133 868 or email info@geneethics.org **

Please attend this free workshop, to help you organise your local GM-free council and learn from the successes of others.

Your strong support is needed to encourage your council to adopt the GM-free policies that Gene Ethics advocates in letters and petitions. Councils will only listen and act if your voices - local ratepayers and residents - are behind GM-free policies.

Already many councils have responded to local GM-free Zone activities, but even these councils can do more! For instance, the Bass Coast, Hepburn and Macedon Shires and the Maribyrnong, Greater Bendigo, Ballarat, Moreland and Yarra City Councils are all reviewing their GM-free status.

The Shire of Yarra Ranges has asked State and Federal Ministers to extend the GM bans and label all GM foods as well as ask the Premier to declare our municipality a GM free zone. see posting Tuesday, February 26, 2008 for wording of council's resolution

Come to the GM-free workshop and find out how to get GM-free activities really moving in your area. Volunteer to be your local contact. Gene Ethics can link you with others in your area who share your concern.

Call 1300 133 868 or email info@geneethics.org to join the local GM-free Zone campaign and to attend this exciting workshop!

am: gm - pm:logging

Thursday 28th February

The GM Free rally outside parliament house.

I attended the GM rally at the steps of Parliament House, many concerned citizens where there lamenting Premier Brumby's decision to lift the moratorium on GM Canola.

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Bob Phelps from GeneEthics and Greg Barber, Greens MLC both address the rally.

The Rally was well attended by members of the upper and lower house, the public, concerned advocacy groups, chefs, the slow food group, organic farmers, the list goes on and on.

I had the great pleasure of speaking at the rally. I urged the people there to talk to their local councillors about becoming GM free municipalities. It is not too late to turn this around.

On the 26th February, I moved a motion (which was supported unanimously) to ask Premier Brumby to make the Shire of Yarra Ranges GM Free, lets hope he fulfills our request.

The symbolic release of GM canola pollen into our environment, we all know that pollen knows no bounds, once it's out its everywhere.

That night I attended a public meeting in Warburton to discuss the implications of logging in Melbourne's water catchments. The meeting was very well attended with around 200 people packing the memorial hall. The Central Highlands Alliance and Wilderness Society talked the science, I spoke of the political imperative.

Me, Sarah Rees (The Central Highlands Alliance) and Luke Chamberlain (The Wilderness Society).

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Warburton's past was as a timber town, but that industry has been well and truly eroded by the woodchipping industry, local mills do not get work pulping our native forests.

It was a very positive meeting with locals, environmentalists and loggers more understanding of the issues around logging in water catchments. The community now understands that this an issue is about Melbourne's water supply into the future.

we want to be GM free

In a response to the lifting of the GM Canola Moratorium this week (29th Feb) I proposed the following motion, I'm pleased to say it was supported unanimously by Yarra Ranges councillors, (Cr K Smith absent).

Resolved on the motion of Crs Dunn and Keane

That Council write to:

1. The Premier to ask the State Government to:

(a) Extend the ban on commercial GM canola for at least another five years.
(b) Use its powers to create GM and GM-free areas and to declare our municipality a GM-free Zone (a policy principle made under Section 21 of the Commonwealth Gene Technology Act 2000 gives all states these powers).
(c) Establish a public on-line register (including maps) showing all GM release sites – both experimental and commercial – so those who want to stay GM-free can avoid those sites.

2. The Commonwealth and State Health and Agriculture Ministers, advocating that:

(a) No government allow its GM crop ban to expire without all states agreeing.
(b) All foods made using GM technology and processes are to become fully labelled.
(c) Strict liability laws are enacted to hold GM companies fully responsible for GM contamination.
(d) All animal feed be fully labelled as to its GM or GM-free status so that farmers can exercise their choice to remain GM free.

Let's hope the Premier takes our request seriously and declares Yarra Ranges a GM Free zone.

gm free rally

NOON THURSDAY

FEBRUARY 28TH

Parliament House Steps

Spring St, Melbourne

Premier Brumby will lapse the state ban on Genetically Manipulated (GM)canola on February 29. But that’s not the end… We can still win a GM-free future!!

Voice your outrage that Brumby will take away our GM-free food and crop choices, with Mothers Against Genetic Engineering (MADGE) and Gene Ethics. Brumby did not listen to the wider food industry and shoppers. He kowtowed to Monsanto (the world’s biggest commercial seed company) and Bayer (the largest agrochemical company) and their agribusiness front groups to get GM canola onto our plates and farms.

It will enter our food chain, unlabelled. South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the ACT will keep their GM bans. NSW will allow commercial GM canola to be grown on a case-by-case basis. Only Victoria will permit GM canola to be grown, unrestricted and unregulated.

Wear yellow and bring GM-free food to share. Also bring a canola product that you will boycott after February 28, since it may contain Victorian GM canola.

12.45 pm Symbolic release of GM contamination

Mothers Against GE (MAdGE) www.madge.org 0401 407 944/0407 307 231
Gene Ethics www.geneethics.org 1300 133868 (local call)

We won’t swallow GM foods

(thanks to Gene Ethics for the words)

Me and Bob Phelps from Gene Ethics at a GM Forum last week