Been in Perth for meetings so responses are a tad late:
The farmer related problems of consumer rejection/market problems/patent rights etc is not relevent to mutagenesis.
Recombinant DNA does not specifically plant one gene in the DNA, it randomly forces many of the same gene into the DNA.
Percy Schmeiser deliberated selected for the trait but he tested the law which was claiming that Monsanto owned the plant if it contained a RR gene. Monsanto failed in that regard as Percy did not need to pay for the use of the plant if he did not use the trait (applying glyphosate).
Farmers in Canada choose the canola option of chemical resistant to glyphosate or glufosinate ammonium (through GM) while Australian farmers mainly use the option of chemical resistance to triazine. Unlike Ht varieties competing against non Ht varieties on introduction, we will have GM Ht varieties competing against Non-GM Ht varieties. Independent testing will reveal the differences but it certainly advantages are not the ridiculous 30% yield advantages claimed that has got support by those that are gullible when listening to those with a vested interest. Look at the cost, the chemicals, the weed control versus what we have and you do not get a farmer advantage.
The "others" claiming alliance is no other than those with a vested interest (particularly researchers) and people like Ian Edwards (Agronomist).
NCF represents the concerned farmers, Greenpeace represents concerned consumers and environmentalists. As explained we are a NETWORK distributing information, not a farm lobby group but many of us are members of farm lobby groups. Our organisation is relevent because we have well researched issues that is relevent to the debate and to policy formulation. Try debating or resolving the issues the NCF present.
Your Bt debate confirms what I was saying that you do not need GM crops for either herbicide tolerance of Bt. You can either spray Bt or you GM the plant to produce Bt. Bt is for cotton and corn which is not grown very widely in Australia.

The farming groups supported GM because they believe the misleading hype that you can get higher yields (with misleading evidence) and they have been desperately lobbied by the R&D sector who are desperate for corporate investment funding. I have always managed to counter the misleading debate with facts in WAFarmers policy day but only weeks before this years policy changed from an anti-GM to a pro-GM policy, I was undemocratically and unconsitutionally sacked as senior vice president of the Grains Council of WAFarmers for warning farmers of the liabilities associated with pooling with AWB (since confirmed I underestimated the problem). Typical of the dirty politics involved in formulating the GM policies.
The economic losses are based on misleading information claiming that we are missing up to 30% yield but we are not. Independent testing will prove this which is why it is avoided.
GM is the intruder to the industry, not non-GM. If you want to bring it in, bring it in where it does not adversely affect others income. If the pro-GM lobbyists believed their propaganda that there was "no losses" they would not refuse the liability associated with GM.
What is everyone so frightened of regarding Judy Carman, why not let her do the tests, reveal the data then debate? The parliamentary committee felt that the key problem with Judys testing was insufficient funding, not confidentatility issues. Only Ian Edwards (agronomist) had the issue about confidentiality.
Drought tolerant GM canola is not commercially grown in Canada. The only GM traits are herbicide tolerance (which we have in non-GM).
Golden Rice is not commercially available, it is not Greenpeace that is stopping it.
The debate is being corrupted by those with a vested interest (like Ian Edwards). I understand these people are desperate for corporate funding but why should their needs jeopardise farmers livelihoods?
Good governance is ensuring decisions do not have adverse impacts on others. Thank goodness, state governments are taking their role seriously.

So it is all a conspiracy then Julie, 10 million farmers around the world have had the wool pulled over their eyes and only you have seen the light. The fact that Canadian canola yields for the past 9 years with GM have averaged 1.5 tonnes/ha, whereas Australian yields without GM have averaged less than 1.2 notwithstanding. Perhaps the farmer’s groups (they are the ones with elected officials who represent farmers) have had a look around and noticed that Canadian growers of GM canola are getting higher yields with GM and are still able to sell their crop.

Independent testing in Canada demonstrates that Liberty Link (=InVigor) does yield more. In 2006, the 4 highest yielding varieties were all Liberty Link http://www.canola-council.org/PDF/Nov27_CD_pg25-30.pdf#zoom=100. For each zone, Liberty Link came out on top. These tests contained no Atrazine resistant varieties, which we know yield an average 26% lower than the conventional varieties. I think the 30% higher yield than the common Atrazine resistant in Australia could be quite achievable.

As for the claims of premiums for non-GM Independent consultant Bill Crabtree shows that in June 2007, the price differential was a measly $15 a tonne. Given that Canada has a bumper crop and Australia a miniscule one due to drought, this difference is insignificant. http://www.no-till.com.au/pdfs/gm_issues_Market_premiums.pdf

It is funny how you are trying to spin Percy Schmeiser. Whatever his motives, he was not trying to test patent law. Otherwise, why would he claim that the Roundup Ready came from his neighbour in pollen? Why would he initially deny growing Roundup Ready canola? Why would he doctor his seed samples so they had a lower level of GM than the ones kept at the elevator? Why would he claim to have been a canola breeder for 50 years and maintain that his valuable varieties had been lost when the Roundup Ready came on to his farm? You have to do better than that.

Julie
Nice try dodging the first question. Mutagenesis is the very heart of the matter. It is how many plant varieties are made with absolutely no idea what genes, how many genes or what genomic architecture is changed. yet you accept this as safe but highly examined GM varieties are not. That is completely illogical.

Canadian farmers have had NO Problems with growing or selling their GM canola crops.

You do not seem to understand that the regs demand the exact nature of what gene, where in the geneome and if it occurs how many copies of the given transgene must be determined BEFORE the product can be commercialized. Compared to complete unknowns with other forms of plant breeding. The techniques of site-directed insertion are improving all the time in GM breeding. It will not be too long before the exact location of insertion will be part of the process. Further the use of tissue specific promoters will mean the given transgene will only be expressed in the tissue where it is required in. There is virtually zero chance this type of expression regulation will come from other types of breeding.

Percy was found quitly three times and the SCOC found it was legal to patent RR canola, nice try at spin.

As for my "vested interest" it is education of the public about the realities of GE technologies and also about the pseudoscience (your website has the largest collection I have ever seen) critic try to pass on the public.
Cheers

Julie
I think cotton farmers in Queensland would disagree with little Bt cotton being grown.
That is rich that you can not see the HUGE conflict of interest with Judy's supposed independant research. There is no chance you would or do accept research from the so called vested interests of the pro GM side but somehow you are 100% blind to the obvious conflicts in research done by anti-GM camp.

Greenpeace has a HUGE amount to do with the massive amounts of tests being forced on the developers and the IRRC before Golden Rice can be given away to subsistance farmers. Greenpeace was also involved in the Zambian government denying donated corn to their people because NGO's told the govenment it was poison. How many people died of starvation there? The level of hypocrisy from Greenpeace is overwhelming. Why do you hide your connections to Greenpeace? Why does Greenpeace not tell the public they own large amounts of organic food stocks so they are selling fear to help their own bottom line?

Cheers

To RobW and R Roush: I've learnt a lot from your posts so thanks for your contributions. Sadly, you'll never win science-based arguments against the Julie Newmans of the world. They may have started out in their anti-GM lives as people with genuine concerns about GM food but now their goals have become political ones, so they push multiple barrows including pro-organic food, anti-GM and anti-corporations. No amount of science will sway them, especially since you can never prove that something is totally safe, in spite of the billions of GM meals that people have consumed over the last few years.
I've seen the same change in people from concerned citizen to unthinking zealot occur during anti-mining (especially nuclear) and pro-forests campaigns here in WA. Only rarely do these campaigners accept that they've got it wrong, regardless of the evidence put before them, but they've become converts to political causes which is how they then justify their exaggerations and half truths. The sad thing is that the media love these types of disputes and know that the more ridiculous the claim, the more newspapers they sell or the more people watch their TVs.
In spite of these handicaps, I hope you'll keep up the fight for truth or the luddites will have us back in our caves with the same low standards of living and high death rates that many developing countries still suffer from today.