Useful Idiots

I just got off the phone with Animals Australia and to tell you the truth I'm as mad as a snake.

This afternoon I read another idiot on their facebook page flippantly talking about introducing foot and mouth disease (FMD) to Australia as a way of achieving a shutdown of the live export industry.

Naturally I rang AA to ask them to take down the comment and inform this stupid individual of the consequences of what he was saying. The girl on the end of the phone not only had no idea what FMD is and what it does to animals but only seemed interested in getting me off the phone. This is not the first time I have had contact with Animals Australia about this issue, several months ago I personally begged Glennis Ooges to put out some sort of statement or announcement condemning the people who advocate introducing FMD as a possible method for shutting down live export. So far AA have said nothing, worse than saying nothing they seem perfectly fine with people openly chatting about it of their facebook page.

Introducing FMD will NOT shutdown live export!

If FMD was introduced it would only temporarily suspend the trade until the disease was under control, Australia may lose many of our overseas markets but eventually live export would resume. Live export would probably thrive in a post FMD Australia as many meatworks would be shut down for months or even years as the disease is brought under control, decimating Australia's boxed beef trade ( the meatworkers union should take note here) and making live export the only way to get cattle markets moving again. 

Many nations who have FMD still live export cattle and sheep. These include Brazil, The UK and many other African and South American nations. Through careful control programs and extensive lobbying they are able to continue their live export trade and eventually, so would we.

The Animal Welfare Consequences are UNTHINKABLE!

To the average person who cares about animals and opposes live export, indeed to the majority of people who oppose live export, the animal welfare consequences of introducing FMD are still unthinkable. 

The twisted idiots who are considering introducing FMD seem to think inflicting gross cruelty on some animals to save others from what they perceive to be cruelty elsewhere is a worthy goal. 

This is where we see Peter Singers utilitarian philosophy taken to its most extreme and dangerous conclusion. Singer, (the father of the animal rights movement) teaches we must look to serving the greatest good for the greatest number. 

Is it right (for example) to bribe an impoverished abattoir worker to abuse one animal on camera if the footage gets a dodgy abattoir shutdown and saves many animals from a cruel fate? 

Some animal rights activists would say yes. 

So is it worth introducing a disease that could temporarily shut down the live export industry? Some might say yes until they investigate the terrible effects of the disease.

Foot and Mouth disease attacks (as the name suggests) the feet and mouth of the animal. It causes large, painful sores and blisters to form on the animals feet and tongue. These sores stop the animal from eating and walking. Once the animal cannot walk anymore it is vulnerable being eaten alive by predators or perishing from thirst. 

Failing that it will die slowly by infection.

FMD can spread up to 6 kilometers on the wind and is the most contagious disease in the world that affects  cloven hoof animals. Given the close proximity of farm animals in the southern states an outbreak there would see FMD spread like wildfire. In the north of Australia the population of feral pigs (pigs are the most effective carriers of the disease) would ensure the disease would spread far and wide before it could be detected and containment could begin.

Whether our would be "savior of animals" would chose to release the disease in the north or the south is really irrelevant, the effect would be the same. 

Millions, that's right, millions of cattle, sheep and pigs would have to be destroyed in efforts to contain the disease. Entire districts would have their herds and flocks wiped out. In the north, helicopters would be sent on 'search and destroy' missions where marksmen with automatic rifles would cut down hundreds of animals from the air every day, returning the next day and the next and the next until no cloven hoof animal is left alive and country reeks of bloated bodies and hums to noise of a plague of flies that would gorge themselves on the spoils of the tragedy. 

Foot and mouth disease is a weapon of mass destruction, a plague that kills without mercy and it is disturbing that somehow people are under the deluded impression that unleashing this disease on healthy Australian livestock can somehow be justified under any circumstance. 

Even more disturbing is the inaction on this issue from leaders within the animal rights movement. Having whipped vulnerable people into such a frenzy they believe animals dying painfully from FMD is better than sending them overseas on a ship, these leaders now sit on their hands instead of denouncing those who would commit unspeakable acts to further their cause. 

Do the leaders themselves believe that cruelty can be justified if it somehow results in a suspension of the live export trade? 

Do they regard those who would introduce FMD to Australia as useful idiots? 

Judging by their actions, some of them may need to phone a friend.  

    

The Lee Rhiannon Show

Lee Rhiannon gets more than she bargains for when she attempts to debate an informed farmer on the live export issue.

The Meatworks Argument De-Bunked

In today's modern world it pays to be forever wary of that old saying "He who pays the piper calls the tune" and the live export debate is no exception. Have you ever noticed that the government never releases a report that contradicts their policy position unless they are absolutely forced to? Those who have followed the climate change debate closely will be able to point to reports from both sides of the debate that are laughable in their attempts to cherry pick and selectively quote data regardless of whether big oil, the government or the UN paid for the research. It happens on both sides. It seems these days our universities do a very poor job of producing seekers of the truth, rather they have become a breeding ground for academic mercenaries that can tip the scales of truth any way you want.

Provided you can pile enough money on them.

That said it will not surprise you to learn the often quoted ACIL Tasman Report was of course paid for by the WSPA, the Heilbron Report by several of Australia's biggest abattoir owners including the multinational giant: JBS Swifts.

These two reports form the core evidence for the argument that live exports can be replaced by a frozen meat trade. An argument often made by Lyn White, The RSPCA and The WSPA. They might feel uneasy about staking their reputations on these reports when people begin to read them closely.  

The first and most obvious claim that doesn't add up is the massive amount of GDP we can supposedly create by having Australian meatworks kill the cattle and sheep right here. This won't create anywhere near as many "Australian" jobs as the reports claim, nor will they create as much GDP. The ACIL Tasman report cheekily concedes on page 51 that a cessation of live export would require "some skilled abattoir workers from abroad".

Australian meatworks can't get enough Australians to work for them right now, a large percentage of the current workforce are overseas workers on 457 visas who, as most people would expect, send a large proportion of their wages to their families back in their home countries. This renders the claims for increases in Australian jobs and GDB dubious at best.

Even the much anticipated Darwin abattoir will have an international flavor.

The ACIL Tasman report makes a limp attempt at analyzing foreign markets and makes the assumption that our boxed sheepmeat will be mostly lamb, targeting the emerging and wealthier middle class in some of the counties we live export too. This completely overlooks the fact that  live export is often centered around older animals that represent an invaluable source of affordable protein to the poor people of those nations.  ACIL Tasman fails to take into account the high processing costs in Australia would effectively price us out of that market.

This Beef Central article explains why it costs twice as much to process an animal here than it does in the USA, let alone anywhere else. 

The Heilbron Report does a better job than ACIL Tasman at finding a home for the thousands of tons of extra boxed meat we could produce if we only phased out live export. They didn't even bother to analyze if foreign markets would still buy our more expensive boxed beef but instead make the assumption we can sell that meat to....um...the meat fairies?   

ACIL Tasman's solutions for increasing sheepmeat exports boil down to asking the EU nicely to lift their tariffs (good luck with that), a massive promotional campaign and increasing competitiveness. The money spent by New Zealand on promotional campaigns sound like a good investment until ACIL Tasman concedes on page 61 that even they "cannot ascertain the actual return on these marketing activities". The "Increased competitiveness" ACIL Tasman cites as necessary to make boxed meat exports viable (page 63) hinge on "lowering the cost of production" which is a carefully worded way of saying farmers have to take less money for their animals.

ACIL Tasman are dreaming if they think a return to the bad old days when farmers were paid loose change for their stock is going to be a positive outcome for our already embattled rural communities.     

Lyn White is often quoted comparing farmers to slave traders for arguing that if we cease live export we will be replaced by other countries that have lower or no animal welfare standards. This has already happened in one market, thanks in part to her handy work.

Boxed beef is streaming in to Indonesia from illegal abattoirs in India after boxed beef imports from Australia were slashed early this year. I somehow doubt that animal welfare is a high priority for these lawless backyard butchers that defy not only the laws of their country but their national religion as well. The black market beef trade makes a mockery of The Heilbron Reports sloppy assumptions that expensive Australian boxed meat can replace the live export trade at all.

Far more likely we will be (as we have repeatedly warned) replaced by countries with no regard for animal welfare.

The ABC of media bias

I have a little rule I, until now, have always stuck to on this blog and in my general dealings with the media.

Never ever attack, criticize or in any way risk offending a media organization. They are far too powerful and will simply bury you and whatever cause you stand for just for spite if you dare offend their sensitivities. 

Today I'm forced to make an exception to that rule after coming across this little gem

Now if that is not a loaded question I don't know what is.

 The very structure of the question makes it impossible to vote no and you can bet it won't get a mention on media watch either, one could only imagine the smug reaction from Jonathan Holmes if a commercial news organization tried to get away with skewing a question against climate change in this way.  

I have already written a detailed letter to the ABC pointing out where I believe they are exceeding their charter and portraying a biased picture of live export to their mainstream viewers. I received a limp wristed response from Alan Sunderland pointing out that they believed their coverage of the issue was fair and balanced and that both sides of the argument were given air time in their programs, he even cited the example of Barnaby Joyce's two or three 10 second contributions to 'Australian Story' as providing balance to that programs 30 minute lionizing of Lyn White.

Interesting to note Gleys Oogjes' admission on that program "With that first footage we didn’t think taking it to the government would be effective. We thought that exposing it to the community was the first thing to do"
  
The Four Corners program 'A Bloody Business' has a lot to answer for in terms of bias. The program briefly skimmed over the multi-million dollar abattoir owned by Elders in Indonesia that had been using stunning long before the filming. They also neglected to mention that four other abattoirs were already using stunning with another two in the process of converting. Some twenty five Indonesian abattoirs, accounting for 45% of all the Australian cattle slaughtered in Indonesia were either at or close to OIE standards at the time Four Corners went to air and these abattoirs formed the basis of the closed loop supply chain once the ban was lifted.

None of these facts were given any significant air time next to the constant emotive sad music and the heart breaking footage of animals being tortured in the dingy little backyard kill floors that were portrayed as the norm across the entire country.

Four Corners, it seems, did not want balance to stand in the way of a good Walkley.  

For all the supposed "balance" on ABC TV I do not recall seeing one positive story about live export in the last 15 months. I have however noticed the ABC takes every opportunity to present a negative live export story, Lateline (Hosted by Sarah Ferguson's husband: Tony Jones) seeming to be particularly generous with air time on any story that portrays live export as cruel and wrong. 

The only exception to this behavior being the excellent Landline program which Mr Sunderland also cited as  an example of the ABC's "balance".

Mr Sunderland the majority of Australian voters live in the cities.

City people do not watch Landline, or read ABC Rural or listen to the ABC's regional radio stations that have offered a robust coverage of both sides of the issue.

City people watch the ABC news, the 7:30 Report and Lateline. They have not been shown the human cost of the live cattle ban, the tears of the children whose parents were losing their livelihoods or given any opportunity to understand the many reasons the Live Export trade is necessary to both farmers and animal welfare. They have been fed story after story telling them this industry is cruel and inhumane and that is dangerous in a world where the sensitivities of people in inner city Melbourne matter more to decision makers than the livelihoods of communities in Northern Australia 

I want to ask ABC TV

Is it too much to ask for the positive side of live export to be shown in your prime time programs?

Is it too much to ask you to show the suffering you have helped to cause in Rural Australia to your city audience?

Are you afraid of giving informed industry representatives the chance to properly explain the animal welfare benefits of live export and the reasons the trade can never be replaced with a frozen meat trade?

Or would these actions provide too much "balance". 
        



 



 

Does my cat have a statistically better chance of surviving on a live export vessel than at an RSPCA shelter?

It's amazing what you find when you cut through the emotion surrounding live export and start looking at the hard figures. Live export boats are often accused of being "Death ships" and are branded "ships of shame" by one group of animal activists.

If you look at the 2011 figures for live export vessels on the DAFF website you will see that Australia exported over 3.3 Million animals that year alone. Sadly some 20,288 animals were lost but that means that 99.39% of all the animals exported arrive alive at their destination. Many of these animals do not just arrive alive, they put on weight. In some cases (Indonesia for example) the exporter is paid by the kilogram on arrival for the animals. It is therefore in the exporters interest to use the ship like a floating feedlot and to keep the animals in a contented condition so that they will continue to put on weight and be worth more money on arrival. Any animal that dies en-rout is also a big hit on profitability, hence the low mortality figures.

If you contrast the figures above with the figures provided in the RSPCA's 2010 to 2011 National Statistics the posturing about mortality's on live export vessels can appear ridiculous!

During this 12 month period the RSPCA euthanized no less that 37,177 Cats and 19,583 Dogs!

Together that's way over double the amount of animals that die on live export vessels.

Now of course some of those animals would be sick, injured, old or simply not fit to be re-homed but the devil here lays in what is not shown in the pie graphs of the statistics.

You see there is no representation here for animals that are held for too long or animals that could not be adopted in time but were otherwise healthy. The kicker is that 29% of dogs and 57.5% of cats were put to sleep while the RSPCA NSW branch alone made a whopping 12 MILLION dollar profit. How many more animals could have been saved or kept longer waiting for adoption with that money? 

Given the profits involved, the generous amount of money spent on the RSPCA's live export campaign, the RSPCA's other animals rights campaigns and the threats issued to fund political campaigns against an MP who spoke out in favor of live export it would be fair to ask if the RSPCA is doing enough to look after the animals entrusted to it's care. It is rather sad if your cat has a statistically better chance of surviving on a live export boat than at an RSPCA shelter.

The RSPCA's recent lurching into animal rights really comes up in the national figures with this little pie chart.

You see the RSPCA received some 54,398 cruelty complaints, choosing to prosecute only 275 and nearly half of those are livestock.  The RSPCA has an interest in prosecuting farmers wherever possible, farmers have land which they can be forced sell to pay fines and the RSPCA has recently been very happy to hop into bed with anti-farmer groups like Animal Liberation and Animals Australia.  Every cruelty case the RSPCA can publicize is a gift to the vegan lobby groups that happily portray one off incidents as common practice and farmers as cruel and ruthless industrialists.   

Lets not forget that the RSPCA is often consulted by government on ever tightening farm animal welfare standards in fact  few non government organizations have so much input into laws they are then entrusted to enforce. Farmers who abuse their animals deserve to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law however it is worrying governments put so much trust into an organization that targeted farmers so heavily during the live export campaign last year.  
 
The RSPCA is a large organization with a vast reserve of money and political pulling power that will continue to target Australian farmers along with other fringe animal rights groups as long as we allow them too. You can make a difference everyday by donating to local shelters instead of RSPCA owned shelters, sharing this blog or others like it and spreading the word with friends.

If we don't fight, we lose.

My First Journey As A Live Export Stockman - A Response For The Haters

First off let me say this. I was not paid any money or commissioned in any way, shape or form to write my article that appeared in Beef Central. I was paid the same wage as the other Australian stockmen aboard the boat representative of my previous experience as an outback stockman. I approached Wellard Rural Exports myself so I could see first hand what happened on a live export vessel.

Like I mentioned in my article I had been told terrible things happened aboard live export vessels by a high ranking member of Animals Australia.

My experience showed that person had no idea about the conditions aboard live export boats, perhaps because she had never done a journey on one in her life. 

I will leave the practice of paying bribes for stories up to the people on the other side of the argument. I can prove I wasn't paid but I would like to ask the animal justice fund how much this guy got paid. Thirty thousand dollars is a lot of money to buy the testimony of a disgruntled employee from a live export company or abattoir and I will leave it up to the reader to decide if such payments could actually encourage animal cruelty to be committed or exaggerated in pursuit of such a lucrative prize.

My article is frank and factual and it really is a shame animal rights activists see their cause as noble enough to make the truth irrelevant. 

Check out the live export moralities claimed by WSPA on the right hand side of this page (40,000) and compare them to the figure under fact number 2 here. (28,000!)

The actual figures are available on the D.A.F.F website and of course the WSPA is lying through their back teeth about how many animals died on live export vessels last year.

In fact I could spot several errors of fact on the WSPA page, the biggest porky pie being the ease with which we can replace live export with boxed meat exports. These reports are flawed with the laughable assumption that the rest of the world will pay current prices for boxed meat if we stop live exports.

Recent experience with Indonesia proves otherwise. Since the live export ban last year Indonesia has slashed boxed beef imports  along with reduced live export quotas. They are now sourcing illegally killed beef from India to make up the shortfall.

This means that instead of cattle being exported from Australia and killed in supply chain accredited abattoirs to OIE standards they are being hacked up by lawless backyard butchers in the back blocks of India and sold by criminals into our market.

The footage shown on Four Corners 'A Bloody Business' story was sickening and horrific. Thanks to the work of Lyn White, the exaggerations of the WSPA and the arrogance and ineptitude of Joe Ludwig those scenes no longer play out in four small abattoirs in Indonesia they play out every night in every backyard abattoir in India to every animal that takes the place of an ethically killed Australian animal.

It is a cold and uncomfortable fact that when we allow animal rights activists to interfere with industries they know nothing about the biggest losers are the animals.

My First Journey as a Live Export Stockman

My article published in beef central

To view click here

Clipping DeRose's - a reply to an article in the Australian (25/2) live export is cruel and must be banned)

I would like to ask Mr DeRose if is article (the Australian 25/2)  was intended to be dishonest or to simply betray a willful ignorance of the facts. Mr DeRose declares that Australia is undermining the work of the OIE when in fact the new live export supply chains only send their animals to accredited abattoirs that meet OIE guidelines. Far from undermining the OIE the live export industry is actually creating real change in how animals are treated overseas. If you draw a line across a map of Australia from Townsville to Perth there are no abattoirs north of that line, meaning an instant ban on live export would require animals to be trucked thousands of kilometers south, a poor animal welfare outcome. Those opposed to live export often screech about killing the animals here in Australia but they make the assumption that Indonesia and other countries would buy the expensive boxed meat, a moot point considering Indonesia's recent slashing of boxed beef imports. The fact is Australia is now exporting animal welfare in a way that no other country, not even Mr DeRose's USA can match. A ban on live exports from Australia simply clears the way for countries with inferior standards to take our place and animal abuse to flourish. Mr DeRose joins the many other public voices here in Australia foolishly crying "ban live export, regardless of the animal welfare outcomes".

Fighting for our future - why I am an agvocate

A person whom I had never met face to face, a friend I had met through the 'save live export' facebook group called me just before the big RSPCA protest in Melbourne. She was having second thoughts about coming with my partner and I to counter protest at the rally and I could hear in her voice that she was very intimidated by the idea of being out-numbered a thousand to one at a very emotionally charged protest. (I don't blame her either)

"I just don't see how we're going to do anything worth while, there's so many of them, so few of us and they never listen anyway." She said.

Those of us who have fought this battle over the last eight months or so have often  asked ourselves why we bother. I've often wished for the days when we were allowed to farm without having to justify our existence to a group of people that would never take the time to walk a mile in our shoes for fear having to challenge their moral vanity "live export is wrong, I am right, end of story".

Often, when cornered by hard evidence like government reports that clearly prove the massive negative animal welfare outcomes of the changes these people push for or the non-viability of abattoirs replacing live export (Indonesia recently slashed boxed beef imports) they turn to abuse or twisting previous statements all out of context, forcing the argument over old ground and into a vicious circle of repetitive venomous argument.

The disturbing thing about this strange tactic is that it constantly exposes the fatal flaw in the arguments these people use. They don't care what happens to the cattle, the sheep or the farmer for that matter. To put it in the words of one protester "farmers should just sell all their farms and get real jobs"

Vegan lobbyist's only care about being right. Negative animal welfare outcomes resulting from vegan lobbyists pushing for changes in industries they don't understand are simply blamed on the farmer and I have no doubt that any sort of concession or compromise will only be rewarded with further demands. This has nothing to do with animal welfare, kindness or climate change. This fight is about the slow, deliberate crushing of an iconic Australian industry by slowly destroying markets and increasing our costs to gradually kill us off farmer by farmer.

My friend did come with us that day, she stood shoulder to shoulder with my partner and myself against roughly two thousand protesters, she kept her temper and gave a good account of herself arguing the issues back and forth with both the good and the ignorant people that were present on that warm August day. When she asked me the night before "what difference will it make" my reply was this.

Someday, and I hope that day never comes, your children may ask you "how did it get so bad?"
You can look away, maybe pretend you didn't hear the question or say "I don't know" or you can look them in the eye and say in all honesty "I did everything in my power to stop it, we fought them all the way."

One thing is certain, if we don't fight we lose.