A SURVEY of political opinion across New Zealand has found broad support for keeping the country free of genetically modified organisms.

Releasing the results of its 2017 survey on political party views regarding genetic modification, the Science Media Centre reported that 'failures' of genetically engineered technologies witnessed overseas and the continuing export demand for GM-free food had stifled any appetite for an end to New Zealand's current moratorium on planting.

Predictably, NZ's Greens do not support the release of GMOs to the environment or inclusion in food, and favour comprehensive labelling of imported foods containing GMOs. The Labour Party would also prefer to maintain the status quo on GE release, although it would defer to the country's Environmental Protection Authority to decide.

If there were to be a national approval, the Maori Party would seek the ability of regions to declare themselves as GM-free, while at the other end of the political spectrum, New Zealand First 's policy on GM is to "proceed with extreme caution, and only under secure confined laboratory conditions".

President of lobby group GE-Free NZ Claire Bleakley welcomed the 'growing consensus' across NZ's parties in favour of policies that would not permit the open release of GMOs in the country: “They recognize the economic advantages that our GE-free status brings to New Zealand," she said.

The negative experience of commercial release of GMOs overseas had, she added, shown how NZ's GM-free policy was an advantage that "will only grow in international appeal" in high value export markets over coming years.