Experts agree that advances to GMO technology means laws need to change. But just how those changes look is contentious.

The government is promising a relaxation of gene technology regulations will provide economic growth for the country, but critics fear the new bill is too loose and a step too far.

"It is using a bulldozer to crack a nut," Jack Heinemann, professor of genetics at the University of Canterbury, tells The Detail.

Public submissions for the Gene Technology Bill closed this week.

Introduced late last year, the bill aims to modernise New Zealand's regulations on genetic modification (GM) and gene editing technologies, and seeks to balance the potential benefits of gene technologies with environmental, health, economic, and cultural considerations.

Currently, New Zealand's regulations - among the most stringent in the world - mean that GMOs cannot be released out of containment without going through a rigorous process.

The government says the purpose of the new bill, set to be in place by the end of the year, is to enable the safe use of gene technology and regulated organisms in New Zealand, while the intention is to establish a new regulatory regime for gene technology and GMOs.

Among the changes, low-risk gene editing techniques that produce changes indistinguishable from traditional breeding will be exempted from regulation and a new regulator of the industry will be appointed.

In his state of the nation speech this month, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said "enabling gene technology is about backing farmers. It is about embracing growth. It is about saying 'yes', instead of 'no'".

But critics - including Professor Heinemann - argue that deregulating gene editing technologies has wider consequences than the government has considered.

"They are taking an approach where some of the most powerful of our gene technology tools will be deregulated which means anybody can use them, anywhere, anytime,'' Professor Heinemann says.

"This legislation would take chemical components, that happen to be biological molecules, that are also very potent mutagens and allow people to use them anywhere without any kind of oversight.

"When we have done those kinds of operations historically, we have at least required that they be done inside a registered containment facility, so we can control who is using them, who is exposed to them and what happens to the things that we didn't want exposed or to the things that were changed in ways that we didn't want them to be changed in, and make sure that those don't escape the laboratory and get into the environment.

"This is the departure point for the bill as proposed... for some of the most important, easily obtained and powerful of the techniques we have available right now."

He said New Zealand's identity as a GMO-free export country would disappear.

Just this week, the Consumers Union of Japan, a leading consumer advocacy group of about 30 million people, reiterated its longstanding rejection of GM foods, urging New Zealand to remain a natural food exporter.

In an open letter, chairperson Mrs Michiyo Koketsu said: "We hope you will remain a stable, wonderful, and natural food exporter. Do not underestimate the old saying, 'the customer is king,' and please keep New Zealand GM-free."

But Newsroom.co.nz political reporter Fox Meyer, who has been covering the story, tells The Detail that while the bill is a seismic shift for the country, there are benefits.

"GMOs are not as alien as we might think," Meyer says. "And whether or not New Zealand is currently using GMO technology, we are all consuming GMOs every day... and we have been modifying the genes of crops for thousands of years to arrive at the ones that we enjoy now.

"What we are able to do now is speed up that process effectively, as long as you know what you are doing, and you know how to target the changes that you want to see. It offers a lot of advantages."

The new bill can facilitate the development and availability of innovative medical therapies, such as CAR T-cell therapy for cancer treatment, and it may support the development of genetically modified crops that are resistant to pests and diseases, which could enhance agricultural productivity and sustainability.

This could help farmers adapt to climate change and reduce reliance on chemical pesticides.

"You can get crops that are resilient to climate change, that can weather higher highs and lower lows or require more or less water or have higher yields, that's an especially important one" says Meyer.

"But there's also just conveniences - imagine an onion that doesn't make you cry, or [how] the red grapefruit's colour is actually a product of GMO back in the 1970s in America.

"The sky's the limit with it, as far as the possibilities are concerned... it's just finding the right methods and shoring up the regulations."

This story was originally published by RNZ