Pests, especially rats, stoats and possums, pose a significant threat to New Zealand's endemic biodiversity. Genetic modification (GM) offers a potential new means of controlling these pests. However, GM is a ‘hot’ environmental problem (it has complex and controversial social, cultural and economic dimensions) in this country. No genetically modified organisms (GMO) have been released into the New Zealand environment, other than in vaccines. GM developments and field tests have been approved under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996, but the Authority is criticized as having a science bias, resulting in it over-emphasizing representative rather than participatory approaches to GM regulation. Consequentially, communities opposed to GM have turned to the Resource Management Act 1991's participatory planning scheme to block GMO releases using rules in local policies and plans. To ensure that these rules did not impede the release all GMOs in New Zealand, including GMOs in vaccines, Parliament moved to allow the Minister to veto local anti-GMO rules, except rules about GM crops. The extent to which this amendment results in a re-assertion of representative democracy over participatory democracy in GM regulation in New Zealand depends on how widely the courts interpret the Minister's new power.

中文翻译：

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转基因生物、害虫以及新西兰转基因活动决策中的参与性和代议制民主

害虫，尤其是老鼠、白鼬和负鼠，对新西兰特有的生物多样性构成重大威胁。基因改造 (GM) 为控制这些害虫提供了一种潜在的新方法。然而，转基因在这个国家是一个“热点”环境问题（它具有复杂和有争议的社会、文化和经济层面）。除疫苗外，没有任何转基因生物（GMO）被释放到新西兰环境中。转基因开发和现场测试已根据 1996 年《有害物质和新生物法》获得批准，但该机构被批评为存在科学偏见，导致其过分强调对转基因监管的代表性而非参与性方法。因此，反对 GM 的社区转向了 1991 年资源管理法。使用当地政策和计划中的规则阻止转基因生物释放的参与性计划计划。为了确保这些规则不会阻碍新西兰所有转基因生物的发布，包括疫苗中的转基因生物，议会开始允许部长否决当地的反转基因生物规则，但关于转基因作物的规则除外。该修正案在多大程度上导致在新西兰的通用汽车监管中重新主张代议制民主而非参与式民主，这取决于法院对部长新权力的解释范围。