Next,

Your anti technology crusade is pure fantasy.

Very few scientists are political. They are simply looking for solutions to problems.

CSIRO has never aligned itself with Monsanto, (which is an industrial corporation), but has been involved in assessing the benefits and risks of various technologies on behalf of the government, and once trying to develop its own products in competition with Monsanto.

The CSIRO is involved in developing farming techniques, to improve yields and reduce soil damage which apply to organics as well as non organics. However, the low yields and nil nutritional benefits of organic food means that it is likely to remain the premium priced food source of the indulged.

Areas where commercial modern agriculture has been replaced with "local" production is Zimbabwe and other African countries where food production has plummeted, and starvation is rampant.

If you can show a country where the population generally has suffered from high tech agriculture and not the goverment coruption I would be most interested, as I could not find any.

Shadow Minister, your response is rubbish in almost every respect. Firstly, I'm not anti-technology - I am against corporate technologies commercialised, imposed and dumped on a population with the complicity of government - GE is a fine example. Secondly, CSIRO Plant Industries is in a contractual relationship with both Monsanto and Bayer (try and get a copy of the contracts/agreement - protected from public scrutiny by a narrow reading of the FOI act). If you think that financial relationships with corporations don't affect science-research priorities and research results, have a quick look at the peer reviewed literature - it's unequivocal. Finally, scientists working in many areas of technology are in a political sphere whether they want to be or not. I agree, many simply want to do their science - that doesn't mean they aren't inadvertently or through willful ignorance - supporting political decisions that impact on many of us. If you look at the history of the development of GE and nanotechnology, the story is far less benign. Many scientists have been actively complicit in avoiding public scrutiny, regulation before commercialisation and informed consent from communities. Science/technology is probably more politicised (at least in several major sectors) than at any time since the Catholics ran the university systems in Europe.