There's a story all over the Australian media this morning about some beef farmer in the Top End who's planning to shoot some 3,000 head of cattle to protest government policy.
Rewind for those who haven't been following this: a few weeks ago the government suspended exports of livestock after a TV investigation revealed the horrible treatment of the animals in Indonesian slaughterhouses.
As always with this government, a combination of inept handling, a generally hostile media and swivel-eyed opposition, and interest group special pleading has turned this into a huge political mess. If they lift the moratorium, the animals will be sent back to Stalag Luft Bandung. If they don't, the poor farmers (who have supposedly been running a monitoring programme to make sure these sorts of abuses don't happen) - oh, the poor farmers will lose out. It's Catch-22.
So back to our guy who's planning to shoot 3,000 cattle - so he says, because he can't afford to feed them if they don't get sold. Leave aside the fact that, while morning radio is in a complete tizz about this, even the spokesman they had from the National Farmers' Federation seemed reluctant to take the bait - pointing out the practical challenges of gunning down several thousand large animals in the wild.
The destiny this farmer is planning for these animals is to herd them into overcrowded yards, pack them in trucks stinking of their own crap, load them into ships where the crap is knee-deep, herd them into abattoirs, and kill them using methods even the farmers agree are cruel and unacceptable. Given the choice between that and a bullet to the brain in the wilds of Australia, I know what I'd choose.
What do these journos think happens to livestock anyway? I'm pretty sure they're not being bred to manage the perfume counter at David Jones.
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