Australia-GM Trials get green light in WA.

WA Agriculture and Food Minister Terry Redman has hit out at the non-Government members in the Legislative Council for creating "unnecessary confusion and uncertainty" ahead of the planned GM canola trials.

The Greens and Labor members in the Legislative Council last week combined to pass a ’disallowance motion’ to prevent upcoming GM trials, but the Government says the protest vote will not stop the trials from going ahead.

"Following the vote in the Upper House, I will sign another exemption order allowing GM canola trials in this State," Mr Redman said.

"As no crops have yet been planted, all the disallowance order does is create unnecessary paperwork.

"This exemption order will come into effect when it is gazetted.

"After that, farmers participating in the trial will be free to plant GM canola."

The situation was created because of the anomaly in WA politics where the seats of the Upper House do not change at the same time as the Lower House.

This has allowed members voted out at the last election to still participate in the debate.

At the time Greens MLC for the South West Region, Paul Llewellyn, said the motion provided Mr Redman "some breathing space to re-think his approach to GM crops trials".

About 1000 hectares of GM canola trials at 20 sites have been approved by the State Government to test segregation systems, but Mr Llewellyn said trial in NSW and Victoria had already shown these systems do not work.

"The arrangements that were proposed by the government simply did not offer an appropriate level of protection to the farmers involved in the trials, to non-GM farmers, or to consumers," he said.

"GM growers were required to sign up to full responsibility and liability for the trials, even though the level of contamination risk is not properly understood.

"These ill-conceived trials were in fact commercialisation by stealth."

Mr Redman said trialling GM canola is a policy that was taken to the election "and the voters of Western Australia saw fit to trust us with both Government and the balance of power in the Upper House".

"This disallowance motion is nothing more than a desperate search for relevance from people who lost their seats at the election," Mr Redman said.

"It will have no effect on a farmer’s ability to participate in these trials."