331. The risk assessment begins with postulation of credible pathways that might lead to harm to the health and safety of people or the environment during the proposed release of GMOs due to gene technology, and how it could happen, in comparison to the parent organism and within the context of the receiving environment.
332. Five risk scenarios were identified whereby the proposed dealings might give rise to harm to people or the environment. This included consideration of whether expression of the introduced genes could result in products that are toxic or allergenic to people or other organisms, or alter characteristics that may impact on the spread and persistence of the GM plants. The opportunity for gene flow to other organisms and its effects if it occurred were also assessed. These risk scenarios were considered over both the short and long term.
333. A risk is only identified when a risk scenario is considered to have some chance of causing harm. Risk scenarios that do not lead to harm, or could not reasonably occur, do not represent an identified risk and do not advance any further in the risk assessment process.
334. The characterisation of the five risk scenarios in relation to both the seriousness and likelihood of harm did not identify any risks that could be greater than negligible. Therefore, they did not warrant further detailed assessment. The principal reasons for this include:
- the GM canola has been produced by conventional breeding of GM canola lines that have previously been assessed and authorised for commercial release in Australia
- widespread presence of the same or similar proteins encoded by the introduced genes in the environment and lack of known toxicity or evidence of harm from them
- limited capacity of the GM canola to spread and persist in undisturbed natural habitats.
335.Therefore, any risks to the health and safety of people, or the environment, from the proposed release of the GM canola plants into the environment is considered to be negligible.