ACT Environment Spokesman MP Gerry Eckhoff today called for an urgent debate on the High Court decision against the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA).

“We have heard rhetoric from the Greens for weeks,” Gerry Eckhoff said.

“Today I want to give Jeanette Fitzsimons an opportunity to front up and support her emotive arguments with a fact or two.

“This issue must be debated. The Greens must produce facts, rather than relying on specious metaphysical beliefs.

“The Greens have painted a dishonest picture of ERMA scientists. The Environmental Risk Management Authority consists of highly principled people who do a difficult job very well.

“The fact is that New Zealand had an excellent opportunity to utilise science to better the lot of thousands of sufferers of Parkinson's disease, Cystic Fibrosis and Multiple Sclerosis.

“This research could have benefited so many people, and it could have been done right here in New Zealand. Jeanette Fitzsimons stopped that from happening.

“The ERMA exists to put checks in place. Now, Jeanette Fitzsimons and her eco-moralist friends flout the Authority, taking spurious legal action based on their own subjective ethics.

“Jeanette Fitzsimons claims to know better than the scientists. I want her to tell that to the mother of a child with Cystic Fibrosis. I want her to explain herself to every New Zealander who knows somebody with Parkinson's Disease, Cystic Fibrosis or Multiple Sclerosis," Gerry Eckhoff said.

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