A Great Day......

I checked Google News this morning and had a welcome sigh of relief as I saw that both Private Members Bills had failed to gain the support of either the government or oposition MP's

TWO separate bids to end live animal exports have failed to win the support of a single government or opposition MP
Source: Herald Sun (Link: http://bit.ly/oturRd)

This is great news for the Australian Live Export Industry as the industry can now start to get back up on its feet after the knee jerk reaction that left thousands of cattle stranded in export yards and farms that were beginning to become overstocked.

This disappointment of the day is the news that the RSPCA and Animal Activist groups are not going to leave the issue and have effectively put into place a scare campaign against producers and the general public by publicly vowing to release further footage. This to me says that this is a very juvenile action trying your cause out in the media using what is clearly going to be a bias to spin their story. I am curious to see whether this footage has in deed been kept from an earlier time as the Four Corners footage and if they are considering the "ethical dilemma" (as they put it) of releasing it now instead of earlier? This to me says they are pushing their own agenda, and that if they'd been concerned for the welfare of animals they would have released the footage earlier, if not to the public then the Government who can put into place policies to prevent further mistreatment.

Interested in a bit of an insight into the strategies that groups use to make these ads and cause you to become emotionaly driven to support their cause? Why not Check out this Weeks episode of The Gruen Transfer on ABC iView (or it is repeated on ABC2 at some stage as well).

Decision time.......

Tomorrow seems to be earmarked as the big day for the future of Live Animal Exports.
Tomorrow will find the verdict for two Private Members Bills, One calling for the immediate cessation of Live Animal Exports and the other for a period of phaseout over the next three years.

The context of these two bills got me a bit curious:
Would these bill not just encompass the trade of cattle and sheep but also to the other animals that we export on a yearly basis?
For instance did you know that we also export camels, sheep, goats and dairy cattle? And that every year we also send some of our best stallions overseas as a provision for breeding within their respective industries. As it stands the demands splashed through the media calling for the immediate cessation of exports would impact these to.
Our dairy cattle are sent overseas, purchased by countries from all over the world for the addition of genetic material to their respective hereds

Australia also exports goats and dairy cattle. The main markets for dairy cattle are Mexico, Russian Federation, China, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
Source: http://bit.ly/qIDk2u

So it would be interesting to see how the public feel knowing that by banning ALL Live Exports as they so plainly put it would have an immediate impact on many other industries not just those of the live cattle and sheep trade industries.

One other interesting turn of events of late has been the allegation that workers were paid to inflict the pain on the animal featured in the documentary. Now don't get me wrong I work with cattle and do not in any shape condone the actions that were committed at all, but if payment was the case should it not be pertinent to put an immediate halt on the vote to ascertain whether this evidence is indeed correct or not to ensure that those voting on the proposed Bills have a clearer understanding of the situation at hand?

Too long has this been played out in the media and turned into a circus of who gets the best inside story (though looking at the news in the past week the media spotlight has only been on one party, and that certainly wasn't cattle producers), I can only hope that the vote tomorrow is done objectively with those making decisions realizing that there is a lot more at stake (no pun intended) than just their personal image.

*It should be put that this is my understanding of the bill structure. Please feel free to comment if it is otherwise.