Evidence of a cover-up - Public relations and calculated 'spin'

3. MYTH - The Government was open about the contamination at the time.

FACT - The government planned and implemented a PR exercise to avoid public concern.

Evidence

i. Initial meeting between Government, regulatory bodies and industry:

The companies' first request was that the issue remain secret at least until a course of action had been agreed. If or when it became public, they urged that they use the word 'maize' rather than 'sweet corn' in any government press releases, so as not to raise public concerns about food. They also urged that the negative-sounding word 'contamination' be avoided. A word like 'intermingling' was preferred.

ii. Industry public relations firm lobbies the Government to spin the announcement:

The seed company Novartis' public relations advisor, Norrey Simmons, had inappropriate influence on how the Government delivered information about the contamination to the public.

In an email to Kathy McNeill from the Ministry for Environment, Ms Simmons says:

"We have taken the liberty of drafting an updated statement that diverts the debate from the corn issue to a more generic issue of recognising the need to develop a practical protocol."

iii. A calculated spin on the 'public announcement' of contamination:

A press conference by Marian Hobbs, Minster for the Environment, was originally planned to reveal information about the contaminated corn. However the Communications section at the Ministry for Environment recommended against a press conference as it:

"gives the issue a level of significance which we probably don't need and second the Minister could rapidly get out of her depth with questions."

Marian Hobbs' Press Secretary then decided to only put out a press release and advise the media that the Minister would be available for questions rather than risk "boosting [the] significance" of the announcement with a press conference.

iv. The Q and A from Ministry for the Environment on the announcement:

The Question and Answer sheet on sweet corn went through multiple drafts. An early draft had said; 'In essence some of the tests have shown the presence of a genetic sequence which is strongly indicative of a genetic modification.'

A week later it had been changed to; 'If genetically modified material was present at all, it was unlikely to be more than 0.04% of this.'

However, the draft given to Marian Hobbs was; 'If genetically modified material was present at all in that shipment, the amount present was below the level that could be reliably detected.'

Marian Hobbs had a range of answers prepared for her, depending on how hard she was pushed or whether the journalist had some information from elsewhere. For instance:

There were three answers prepared for the question - 'Where are these crops growing?' ranging from revealing the facts, to denying that she knew.

1 In a number of regions of New Zealand. I suggest you talk to the industry spokesperson, Peter Silcock.
2 There are plantings in East Coast, Hawkes Bay and Marlborough.
3 I do not know the actual sites where these crops are growing.'

The 'song sheet' said "testing every seed means grinding up and destroying ability to grow".

According to the transcript, Hobbs said on Radio New Zealand's midday rural news: 'you can never say anything is totally GE free, unless you were to test every seed and, therefore, nothing to plant, because when you test the seed you destroy it [laughs]'.

v. Vague press release:

Marian Hobbs' press release on the 19th December 2000 carefully couches the information regarding the contamination in terms to avoid provoking public concern. It was buried five paragraphs into the release, put out in the week before Christmas 2000 (19th December), six weeks after the initial warnings. She uses the "fudged" science and states that:

"Although initial testing suggested there might be minute traces of GM content, a more detailed evaluation concluded with a high degree of confidence that, if present at all, the GM material was at levels below that which can be reliably detected."

Anyone reading this information without detailed knowledge of the results of the tests and Dr Hannah's conclusions would have little grounds to believe that GE corn was released. The spin worked and the incident slipped by without notice.