animal cruelty

Eastern side of Wilson's Promontory near where
the fire started. Photo: John Woudstra

I have been monitoring the Jan-Feb 2009 Victorian bushfires from NSW and have turned my attention to the bushfire management in a natural area - Wilsons Promontory. I note satellite observations of the fire with concern showing the lighting ignition on the east coast started 9th February, but had almost extinguished itself by the 13th. Then a wind change drove it out of control. A week later it has burnt out 22,000 hectares (almost 50% of our precious 50,000ha Prom)!

While the Country Fire Authority (CFA) has paid special attention to non-imminent bushfire risks to rather distant private property. The CFA says "the fire does not currently pose a threat to the Yanakie community." Backburning the Prom is given as the only bushfire response strategy. So do we interpret this as a noncommittal response by the CFA for the Prom - that is since no human lives or private property are at threat, the CFA's bushfire response is to just 'monitor' the fire and put out the spot fires threatening private property to the north?

I interpret this bushfire management by Victoria's CFA as one that respects only human life and property, but does not rate the natural asset values of fauna and flora habitat of the Prom with any respect.

The CFA reports read as though CFA policy for active and damaging bushfires in important conservation areas is to wait for rain, but otherwise 'let it burn'.

And yet the Bureau of Meteorology forecasts hot and windy conditions for tomorrow Monday, 23 Feb 2009.

Wilsons Promontory where thousands of hecteres have been burnt.
Photo: John Woudstra

I interpret this bushfire management by Victoria's CFA as one that respects only human life and property, but does not rate the natural asset values of fauna and flora habitat of the Prom with any respect. It seems at best an opportunity for de-facto hazard reduction that it would normally not get permission to do, and at worst an inconvenient distraction for CFA crews.

If this is the prevailing attitude of rural firefighting then clearly the CFA has no interest in natural assets, and no mandate to protect them from fire in the same passionate way it does private property? There seems no difference in approach or skill set by the CFA to that that would be exercised by urban fire brigades.

So why do we have a CFA? Professional fire brigades are expensive, whereas volunteers are cheap is the political answer!

On this basis, it is overdue for the CFA to be incorporated within the urban fire brigade structure. While this initial structural change won't save Victoria's vast tracts of wildlife habitat in the short term, it will sure will remove the false premise to the community that the CFA respects and defends natural wildlife habitats.

What does Victorian Government's Department of Sustainability and Environment have to say for itself? It is charged with the Promontory's protection.

See also: "Crews unable to slow Wilsons Promontory blaze" on ABC online on 17 Feb 09, "Huge blaze threatens the very heart of the Prom" in the Age of 19 Feb 09.

Cows have to give birth to a calf every year in order to produce milk. Mother cows are known to have highly developed maternal instincts and can bellow for days for their stolen babies! The killing of bobby calves, usually at 5 days old as unwanted by-products of the dairy industry, is one aspect that shows it is not a benign industry. We kill over one million new-born calves each year. In Australia, legal means of destroying these unviable calves on farm includes bludgeoning calf skulls with a hammer or shooting them in the head with a rifle or a mechanical bolt. Vealers are raised in crates to be anaemic, for white flesh.

The dairy industry is a high water consumer, and must take a lot of responsibility for the demise of the Murray-Darling food basin! We are also heavy exporters of dairy products. How sustainable is our dairy industry?

Methane emissions from dairy cattle contribute around 30% of all agricultural emissions that total an 18% contribution from agriculture, due mainly to livestock.

According to ABS, in 2005-06, the agricultural commodities that used the most water in the Murray Darling Basin (MDB) were dairy farming - 1,287 GL or 17% and pasture for other livestock - 1,284 GL or 17%, much of this for dairy cattle. In 2005-06, the dairy industry accounted for 39% of the total irrigated area of pasture in the MDB.

About 45% of Australian milk is exported (2007/2008), mainly as milk powders, cheese and butter.

European style diary products can be replaced by more humane and sustainable plant-based ones such as soy, rice and oat milks.

Dairy products have naturally high levels of saturated fat which raises blood cholesterol and will increase vascular disease risk in many people. The traditional cuisines of many countries are dairy-free. Australia's Western-style diseases can be attributed to the amounts of animal-saturated fats we consume, including that found in dairy products.

The amount of water used to make a litre of milk is between 320 and 1000 litres. Soymilk requires about half the amount water of dairy milk. Soymilk is high in protein without the water consumption, the environmental impact of livestock, without the deaths of calves and cruelty to cows, and is healthier!

www.rspca.org.au/campaign/dairyindustry.asp
www.dairycruelty.com.au

That two socially immature males would cruelly bash and kick unconscious a kangaroo whilst capturing the sickening spectacle on video in an apparent attempt to impress their social peers should hardly come as a surprise in a country which, unlike South Africa which nurtures and celebrates its herds of wildebeests, stigmatises the magnificent kangaroo as a pest like a blowfly.

Kangaroos are so little understood in their own country, and their negative profile has minimised them as little more than "wood chips" for meat and skin exports. Public hatred of kangaroos is totally incomprehensible! How could kangaroos be more in abundance now than when Captain Cook sailed up the coast? There is less water in our rivers, less wetlands, less vegetation and more feral species, thanks to human mismanagement! Our biodiversity losses are of a world class standard. Kangaroos are scapegoats for livestock and human damage.

The bashings, torture and killings of native animals, especially kangaroos, is surely a reflection on their status. We have officially-endorsed "culls" (read "massacres") such as at Canberra earlier this year, and another at Maria Island, Tasmania. Despite their falling numbers, their "harvest" quota is still set at 3.5 million!

In Victoria, the DSE regularly give permits for killings when landowners are inconvenienced. Is it not surprising that there are low-lives that think that killings for entertainment are "fair go".

Our wildlife needs to be protected as our national symbols, and any attacks or killings needs to attract heavy goal sentences and fines. We are famous for decimating our wildlife, and these sadistic attacks on kangaroos are a reflection of community attitudes that urgently need to change.

See also: Nationwide hunt for kangaroo basher (Western Australia Today) of 11 Sept 08, RSPCA launches nationwide hunt for kangaroo basher (ABC) of 11 Sept 08, RSPCA, police hunt for roo thug.

Those Australians uncorrupted by the ubiquitous US media, are gobsmacked by the utter tastelessness that passes as attractive in US presidential candidates. Sarah Palin, the latest republican candidate for USA Vice President, epitomises this trend.

Championing selected human rights, apparently prepared to sacrifice her own daughter to a public shot-gun marriage, she seems like a high-tech cartoon of a religious reactionary. It is chilling to realise that the violent religious right are among the few which the press and corporations want to motivate to vote in the US client state. The rest of the American voters are largely kept very bored with the notion of exerting some say in their own fates.

Not just tasteless; malice and stupidity caught on film:

I was bemused, impotent - until I saw this film. Then I realised how bad Sarah Palin must be, how bad the US situation must be - politically and for wild as well as domesticated species - tortured and harassed the way they were in Roman circuses and for the same political ends.

This three minute video about Sarah Palin's appallingly cruel record on wildlife also tells us about the beautiful Alaskan wilderness.

A rare chance to speak up for wildlife and be heard world-wide

The world is watching Sarah Palin.
Please don't give into apathy here, because the high profile of this ignorant woman, gives those of us with an ounce of decency, an opportunity at world-wide level, to show the US Republicans that shooting animals whose habitat is already beseiged by US overpopulation and economic greed - for sport - goes way beyond the bounds of decency.

The situation and the values appear to be quite depraved. The bible bashing that accompanies this grand-scale human bullying is nauseating and frightening. How widespread is this emotionally blunted contempt for nature and blindness to beauty or compassion in the mainstream religions?

Time now for religious leaders to rise up and condemn and ostracise this woman and the entire party which endorses her, or forever be condemned by their already long record of silence on such things.

On top of her apparent absence of normal compassion, this woman who according to my values is insane, actually models the brutal execution of wildlife using technologically intensive weaponry from petroleum-guzzling small airplanes. This is frightening ignorance of here and now petroleum costs and scarcity in a world where the US has actually gone to war for more petroleum. This is oil-profligacy in a political context where even her own party is advocating reducing foreign oil dependency. For every drop of oil, how many drops of human and other blood and sap in our turbo-vandalised natural world?

Is Right to Life a political mechanism to draw energy from reasonable people?

It makes you wonder if Right to Life is just an impossibly confusing, diabolically effective smokescreen to cover up total immorality, utter selfishness, blind, driving ambition, compulsive wastefulness and money-worship in the US political Right. Are the religious right of the Republicans its moral orcs?

Big money that endorses Republican cruelty should withdraw it or face consumer consequences

And, for those of us who spend nearly all our lives fighting against the needless, heart-breaking suffering which proceeds at an industrial rate, how appalling is the information that big money backs this suffering and keeps it accelerating and amplifying. If that money were to be taken from Sarah Palin and the Republican Party which has endorsed such unspeakable acts, how much kinder, overnight, the world would become.

I hope that someone will write an article about those organisations which have funded Palin and the Republicans so that we on candobetter can name their CEOs and associate them with these deeds.

Like a gothic fairy-tale

Sarah Palin is actually the Governor of Alaska. For more about this woman and for a very interesting comparison of economic benefits of passive wildlife observation vs violent rampaging and Palin's lack of interest in the first, have a look at this Alaskan website, Grizzly Bay Org. According to Grizzlybayorg, her parents guided her values in this.

Photo-source: http://www.grizzlybay.org/SarahPalinInfoPage.htm

It seems like a bad fairy-tale, doesn't it?

Roger Schlickeisen, of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, writes that acceptance by Sarah Palin of the Republican nomination for Vice President puts her second in line to be President of the United States. He says that he needs help "... to let America know where she stands on the brutal and needless aerial hunting of wolves and bears. He asks that people "Watch our new video on Palin’s awful record and share it with everyone you know who cares about wildlife." He warns that the "video is extremely disturbing. It contains graphic images of aerial hunting of wolves," and he adds that this is "a brutal and needless practice that Governor Palin has fought hard to promote and expand."

Palin targets wolves and bears from aircraft; offers costly bounties

Schlickeisen states that, "Despite strong scientific, ethical and public opposition to aerial hunting, Governor Palin has:

* Proposed paying a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf.
* Approved a $400,000 state-funded propaganda campaign to promote aerial hunting.
* Introduced legislation to make it even easier to use aircraft to hunt wolves and bears."

He asks, and I reiterate, "If you care about wildlife, please watch this video right now -- and then share it with every friend, neighbor, conservationist and wildlife lover you know."

Please share this video

"Please also share our video on blogs, social networks and elsewhere. I’ve pasted the link to the video below to help you spread the word: http://actionfund.defenders.org/palinvideo "

Original source of information about the film was 4-9-08 : Rodger Schlickeisen, President of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund: Subject: Video: Sarah Palin's Shameful Record on Wolves

Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund
Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund provides a powerful voice in Washington to Americans who value our conservation heritage. Through grassroots lobbying, issue advocacy and political campaigns, the Action Fund champions those laws and lawmakers that protect wildlife and wild places while working against those that do them harm.

Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund can be contacted at:
1130 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
or at www.defendersactionfund.org

See also:
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin Wins 2008 Rubber Dodo Award in biologicaldiversity.org of 17 Sep 08, Sarah Palin's record on environment is abysmal in seattlepi.nwsource.com of 5 Sep 08 by Rick Steiner and readers' comments,
New Orleans: The City That Won't Be Ignored in The Nation of 3 Sep 08 by Naomi Klein. How Democrat Barack Obama has incredibly surrendered critical ground to McCain in New Orleans, in which the the Rebublican Bush administration scandalously mismanaged the relief effort following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Queensland Labor Premier Anna Bligh, in a #CourierMailLetter">letter published in the Courier Mail on 8 August, claimed concern at the decline in South East Queensland's koala population. However, it was her Government which only recently legislated, against community and local council objections, to fast-track the destruction of much of the remaining koala habitats in South East Queensland to make way for residential development.

Queensland Government to blame for the koala's demise

Wildlife Preservation Society Queensland, Bayside Branch media release

The Queensland Government's growth strategy and past poor planning are the causes of the demise of the state's wildlife emblem, the koala, in South East Queensland, say conservationists.

"One of the biggest reasons why the SEQ koala is heading towards extinction is because of the State Government's pursuit of growth at any cost," said Simon Baltais, spokesperson for Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland Bayside Branch. "As Deputy Premier and Minister for the Department of Infrastructure and Planning, Paul Lucas should be held responsible for this deplorable situation."

"Hundreds of hectares of koala habitat will be destroyed and hundreds of koalas will be killed because of the Minister's push to open more land for residential development," said Mr Baltais.

In a recent joint statement from the Premier and Deputy Premier Lucas on the issue of providing more land for urban development it was stated, "The development industry has been calling on us to make more land in the Urban Footprint available sooner - here it is." (see attached #QldGovtMediaRelease">media statement at end)

Yet the Government's own research has shown urbanisation is driving the koala to extinction (see attached background paper). The SEQ koala had gone from Common to Vulnerable in 2004 and now the Koala Coast koala population is considered Endangered. Just recently the Environmental Protection Agency and Moreton Bay Regional Council showed the urban koala population in that area had declined 46 per cent over the past six years. The situation is similar on the Gold Coast, where the State Government has condemned hundreds of koalas to death because they have allowed massive development in Coomera koala habitat.

"The loss of koala habitat was recognized as the biggest killer of koalas." said Mr. Baltais. "As a member of the Koala Taskforce recently setup to advise the State Government on the matter of how to save the koala I will state what scientists have been saying since 1995, protect koala habitat in both the rural and urban environment."

"The key reason why the koala is heading towards extinction is because the State Government is ignoring the scientists and because ministers like Mr Lucas have encouraged an unsustainable pattern of development in SEQ."

Simon Baltais
WPSQ - Bayside Branch
Mb: 0447 539 968

#Background" id="Background">Background for Media Release

Sunday, August 10, 2008

The 1995 Planning Guidelines for the Conservation of Koalas in the Koala Coast (SPP 1/95) stated, urban residential, industrial and commercial estates and major Community developments were considered to be generally incompatible with the maintenance of koala habitat values.

However, the State Government allowed urban development to occur in koala habitat.

The 1997 Planning Guidelines for the Conservation of Koalas in the Koala Coast (SPP 1/97) stated that urban residential, industrial and commercial estates and major community developments were considered to be generally incompatible with the maintenance of koala habitat values.

However, the State Government allowed urban development to occur in koala habitat.

In March 2004 the koala was re-listed from a common species to 'vulnerable to extinction' in the South East Queensland Bioregion, under the Nature Conservation Act 1992 (NCA).

However, the State Government allowed urban development to occur in koala habitat.

In 2005 the SEQ Regional Plan stated that koala populations are declining or becoming locally extinct in many areas, primarily due to habitat loss. The SEQ Regional Plan Regulatory provisions stated that subdivision of land in the Regional Landscape Area could not be subdivided below 100 ha.

However, the State Government allowed urban, commercial development, rural industries and quarries to occur in koala habitat and allowed subdivision of koala habitat in the Regional Landscape Area. The lots were smaller than 100ha.

In 2006 the Nature Conservation (Koala) Conservation Plan 2006 and Management Program 2006-2016 stated that koalas are suffering from the impacts of urban development and habitat clearing. The greatest threats to their survival are the destruction and fragmentation of their habitat, car strikes, dog attacks and disease.

However, the State Government allowed urban expansion and development to occur in koala habitat.

In 2006 Nature Conservation (Koala) Conservation Plan 2006 stated:

However, the State Government allowed urban expansion and development to occur in koala habitat.

In 2007 the Report on Koala Coast Koala Surveys 2005-2006 (EPA) stated,

However, the State Government allowed urban expansion and development to occur in koala habitat.

In 2008 the survey by consultants GHD for the Environmental Protection Agency and Moreton Bay Regional Council showed the urban koala population in that area had declined 46 per cent over the past six years. The loss of koala habitat was recognized as the biggest killer of koalas.

Perhaps repetition repetition repetition will finally see the State Government take strong positive action and stop the loss of koala habitat?

Unfortunately, the State Government has already suggested major koala habitat south of Boundary Road, Thornlands (Woodlands Drive) be opened to greenfield development and has forced the community to go to court to stop quarries destroying koala habitat in Mt Cotton. The State Government appears to have written off hundreds of hectares of koala habitat and koalas in the Coomera area.

Is the State Government perhaps just a bunch of slow learners? Do they listen too much to developers and not the scientists and community?

Help the State Government understand the need to protect koala habitat, if
they are genuine about saving the koala, by sending them an email and
reminding them. Email:premier[AT]ministerial qld gov au and
deputypremier [AT] ministerial. qld. gov. au

#QldGovtMediaRelease" id="QldGovtMediaRelease">Bligh greenfield study reveals land, lots of land

Joint Statement:
Premier The Honourable Anna Bligh
Deputy Premier and Minister for Infrastructure and Planning The Honourable Paul Lucas

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Premier Anna Bligh today announced the State Government would fast-track planning for development of 17 greenfield sites in South-East Queensland, as part of its plan to tackle housing affordability.

Ms Bligh said while the Government was limited in its ability to influence
housing prices, she was determined to do everything possible to tackle the
issue of affordability.

"I want the Australian dream to be alive and well here in Queensland, particularly for young people wanting to own their first home.

"Yesterday we announced significant changes to stamp duty to make buying a home in Queensland cheaper and today, we are tackling the issue of land supply.

"Last year as Treasurer and Infrastructure Minister I commissioned a review of the Greenfield areas within the Urban Footprint that could be market-ready sooner.

"I want to see land being turned into new homes for Queenslanders as quickly
as humanly possible and this investigation looked at 42 greenfield areas -
containing more than 40,000ha of undeveloped land.

As a result - the Government will remove any regulatory hurdles slowing the development process on 12 sites:

1. Maroochydore, Meridian Plains, on the Sunshine Coast;
2. Market Drive and North Lakes in Moreton Bay;
3. Upper Kedron and Rochedale in Brisbane;
4. Coomera and Helensvale on the Gold Coast;
5. Springfield and Redbank Plains in Ipswich; and
6. Kinross Road and South-East Thornlands in Redlands

"This will make it possible for the industry to begin the development process of these sites by Christmas.

"In addition, there are five sites where we believe integrated communities of 15,000 people or more can be delivered and we will work with councils to prepare land developer-ready within 12 months:

1. Palm View and Caloundra South on the Sunshine Coast;
2. Flagstone in Logan;
3. Oxley Wedge in Brisbane;
4. Ripley Valley in Ipswich

"That's a total of 17 new Greenfield sites that will be developer-ready by this time next year.

"This is about cutting red tape and bottlenecks that are delaying the development process.

"These bottlenecks are occurring at all levels of government - including within State Government agencies - and its not good enough.

"An implementation team will be established with the Department of Infrastructure and Planning charged with the task of cutting through and removing these hurdles.

"The development industry has been calling on us to make more land in the Urban Footprint available sooner - here it is," she said.

Deputy Premier and Minister for Infrastructure and Planning Paul Lucas said
the fast tracking of Greenfield sites will be guided by an Action Plan
released today.

"Housing affordability is a challenge that demands action not just at all levels of Government but also from the development industry," said Mr Lucas.

"The industry wants more land released and the Bligh Government has responded with a plan that will provide additional housing choice for the public and contain costs by increasing competition between developers.

"But governments can't do it all alone and we can only bring these sites forward if the necessary infrastructure is in place.

"Yesterday we announced the $107 billion South East Queensland Infrastructure Plan and Program, which demonstrates our commitment to building for Queensland's future.

"Now we need to work with the industry to deliver these sites ahead of time.

"They will also need to demonstrate how they plan to deliver the transport options, road upgrades, water and energy needs for these areas.

"These sites must all be developed as well-planned and integrated communities and the State Government will need to ensure growth is spread across the regions.

"Although the review shows plenty of greenfield land available for housing it must be emphasised the South East Queensland Regional Plan aims to cater for 45 percent of the expected population growth through infill and redevelopment."

"This review is another one of the State Government's strategies to address
housing affordability in addition to setting up the Urban Land Development
Authority and implementing reforms to the state's planning and development
systems."

Visit www.dip.qld.gov.au for more information.

Media: 3224 4500 (Premier's office) or 3227 8425 (Deputy Premier's office)

Wednesday, 4 June 2008

#CourierMailLetter" id="CourierMailLetter">Queensland Premier Anna Bligh's letter published in the Courier Mail of 8 August

I assure readers who share my concern about the continued decline in southeast Queensland's koala population that I appreciate the need for a multi-pronged strategy.

The specific areas I have requested the taskforce to consider are further protection of koala habitat, changes to road speeds, signage and koala crossings, koala-friendly fencing in habitat areas, restricting or controlling dogs and banning clearing of habitat trees.

Pets are an important part of our lives, so proposals for controls or restrictions will arouse the most discussion.

However, this is a discsussion we need to have as part of a total response.

Anna Bligh
Premier of Queensland

What you can do: Email Premier Anna Bligh (premier [AT] ministerial qld gov au) and Deputy Premier Paul Lucas (deputypremier [AT] ministerial. qld. gov. au) to demand that they act now to end Queensland's economic dependency upon population growth. This dependency, if not broken, will make the extinction of the koala and other native species, such as the lungfish, inevitable.

See also: Locals join koala 'crisis' taskforce in the Bayside Bulletin of 7 Aug 08 including readers' comments.

Mon Jul 14, 2008
Volunteers remove parasites from the shells of tortoises

Hundreds of Australian long-necked turtles are the latest victims of the demise of the lower reaches of the Murray-Darling Basin. [The Murray Darling Basin is Australia's major riverine system and principle foodbowl.]

Volunteers cleaning victims of worm and market-logic

Small turtle, Big message

The message is that, in the Environment Minister, Penny Wong's scheme of priorities, South Australia's southern lakes long-necked turtles, don't rate much against an irrigation incumbent from the big end of town. For Australia's cash-obsessed government, economic growth may seem to out-rate the turtle, but remember Aesop's fable about the slow and steady turtle against the hare. Thermodynamics tell us that the turtle outlives the hare due to superior thermodynamic efficiency over the long haul. Consider in this light, that respect for nature, rather than subservience to the inhuman market, carries the greater chance for the survival of humans and their civilisation in this desert country. (Sheila Newman)

(Film briefly showing worm-affected turtle but also gives good info on frightening impending collapse of riverine system.)

The turtles that live on the Murray mouth in the Coorong Lakes have been infected by a parasitic bristle worm that thrives in hyper saline waters.

A Goolwa resident, David Surmon, has organised an emergency rescue service for the turtles.
He says that he has saved something between 200 and 300 tortoises, but that he finds more dead each day.
He was reported by Bronwyn Herbert, to say that,

"In the last week I've found around about 13 or 14 dead and that's all deadly in the case of the bristle worm - because what happens is the turtles, if they can move, they get up onto the shore and they can't go any further because there's so much weight."

He added that foxes and rats attacked the encumbered turtles and killed them.

Apparently the bristle worm attaches itself to the turtles' shells and then the infestation slowly increases from then, creating a huge encrustation on the turtles upper and lower shells. The turtle can be trapped inside its shell by the growth of the encrustation. Its legs may not reach the ground anymore, or the worm-infestation may become so heavy that the weight prevents the turtle from moving.

Surmon was quoted by interviewer Bronwyn Herbert, saying that the rescue group had "...actually weighed one, one time, and it weighed nearly seven kilos. And that was a very small turtle. On the back of the turtle was around about three or four inches high of bristle worms."

Turtle rescuer, David Surmon, describes how the team he works saves as many turtles as they are able to reach by taking the turtles from the river and putting them in a big bathtub of rain water. They leave them there for about two or three hours, which is enough to kill the worm. Afterwards the volunteers liberate the turtles from their prison by scraping the dead worm and its encrustation off the turtles carapaces.

"Believe it or not pure fresh water, even tap water will actually kill the bristle worm because it is not used to living in fresh water," David Surmon says.

He said that when he had around a dozen of them, he generally took them further up-river, freeing them up above Murray Bridge.

According to Surmon, the Coorong Lakes comprise very important habitat for turtle reproduction and are the location of a significant breeding population.

Many of us would agree with David Surmon that "Without the wildlife in the river and around the river (...) All we've got is just a big, big mud pan that's going nowhere."

He sounds like a kind and thoughtful man, able to take responsibility and initiative, and to communicate something very significant about our society, our government, and our river system, by reading and interpreting important signs from generally overlooked inhabitants of this badly treated country.

Photos of turtles and their human helpers republished with kind permission from Citizens saving turtles from Murray-Darling crisis The film from you-tube was a selection by the writer.

Government ignores the rights of consumers to shun factory farming horrors

The horrors of mass-produced egg and chicken products were aired last night in Jamie Oliver’s revealing exposé “Jamie's Fowl Dinners”. In addition to the grand-scale cruelty of factory farming methods, what this documentary also revealed was a crisis in mass-produced animal-derived products, as much an issue in Australia as it is elsewhere in the world.

People are horrified when they know the reality

Although the horrified response of audience members exemplified the feelings of people faced with the reality of factory farming, Australian consumers in Australia are currently unable to identify the production methods of the majority of products on their supermarket shelves.

“With the proliferation of vague and meaningless product labels, many of which give no indication of the farming production method used, it is becoming impossible for consumers to make informed choices,” said Verna Simpson, Humane Society International (HSI) Director. “HSI has asked the Government to instigate an urgent review and reform of all legislation relating to the labelling of animal-derived food products, to ensure there is truth in product claims and clarity in product labelling.”

Min for Agriculture ignores cries for less cruelty

The response has been abysmal, with Tony Burke, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, stating that he does not support the labelling of food according to the method of production, and claiming that simply putting the place of origin of foods on labels is enough for consumers to judge suitability based on animal welfare concerns. (Tony Burke's email address is Tony.Burke.MP[AT]aph.gov.au)

Disrespect for ethical concerns of consumers

“This response from Minister Burke is reproachable and demonstrates a complete lack of respect for consumer rights,” said Ms Simpson. “The government is effectively spitting in the face of consumers who have very real ethical concerns about animal welfare and the production methods of the food they are buying. The approach he is advocating is far too simplistic. It is bewildering how Minister Burke expects consumers to make informed choices with this labelling system that is devoid of any meaningful information on what is in the products they are purchasing, and how they are produced.”

Labelling standards must include animal welfare

HSI is calling for a reform of all federal, state and territory legislation and regulations applying to food labelling, branding and marketing, that must ensure the terms used on product labels are limited and clearly defined, and that these terms are linked to consistent national standards, including those for animal welfare.

From an HSI press release, Sydney, 24 July 2008

Contact: Verna Simpson on 02 9973 1728 or 0416 189482

HSI concentrates on the preservation of endangered animals and ecosystems and works to ensure quality of life for all animals, both domestic and wild. HSI is the largest animal protection not-for-profit organisation in the world, with over 10 million supporters globally and has been established in Australia since 1994.

Humane Society International Inc - Australian Office
PO Box 439 Avalon NSW 2107 Australia
Ph: 02 9973 1728 Fax: 02 9973 1729 www.hsi.org.au

Free Victor!
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

freevictor.com

Despite popular opinion, local councils don’t simply exist to enforce petty, confusing bylaws and issue parking fines. They perform several valuable functions - provision of many local services, town planning, management of local parks and facilities.

It made us wonder why so many good citizens have such a low opinion of them. Well, being good citizens ourselves, we set out on a crusade to find out. Then, yesterday, we stumbled upon Victor…

Victor is the loyal and loving pet of Ian Cook. Until recently, Victor lived with Mr Cook at their home in Frankston. Then the Frankston council took Victor away. But why?

See movie of Victor in his temporary home.

Well… you see… Victor is a goat. Apparently, as of recently, being a goat is against the law in Frankston. Or is that keeping a goat? We can’t be sure, but perhaps Deborah Morris of Leader News can better inform us. Click here to read her article, and be sure to return to this site to add your comments. Edit - also click here to see Deborah Morris’ follow-up story.

We’re interested in your thoughts on this story. Is it fair, or is it an example of petty local government bureaucracy? We clearly think it’s the latter, but would like you to share your thoughts. Should we start a petition on this site - a grass roots movement, if you will?

Jarrod

What you can do: visit freevictor.com and sign the petition.