Drink!

Well bugger me, we got a response. The PR team was working overtime (at your expense, dear taxpayer) and managed to punch out a neat reply for most of Jo's first questions. I will give credit to where credit is due, Lee Rhiannon is on a hiding to nothing from us, and could've quite easily ignored it. We struggle to make as much noise as the activists, and getting our side in mainstream media had proved to be very difficult.

So. Below is the link to Lee's reply. But before you read it, I'd like you to get a drink. A few actually, we're going to play a little game I like to call Spotto. Each time you read the word cruel, horrible, horrendous, or the phrase "called for / call for," we yell "Spotto!"and drink. Ready? See you on the other side....

http://lee-rhiannon.greensmps.org.au/content/blog/responses-questions-about-greens-call-ban-live-animal-exports

Sho...you shtill uprightsh?

Seriously though. I'm not surprised at it to be honest, pretty much every argument for bannng the trade is there, and while it looks good, the substance is lacking in alot of areas. I'm not going to bore you all to tears with an in depth analysis, but I can sum it up in two words. Bull. And shit.

Yes, many meatworks have closed down over the years. As have many small family farms been combined into larger operations. The area I grew up in used to have seven families running seven farms. Now that land has been combined into three farms with three families. The school that had 120 kids when I was Year one has now about twenty. It's called consolidation, and it's a bitch. Get big or get out. So as trucks got bigger and could transport more stock further, as wages went up, as costs rose (don't even start me on the latest debacle of having to upgrade refrigeration gas with the carbon tax legislation) all the little works closed down. We lost Geraldton Meat Exporters earlier this year. THEY DON"T EVEN COMPETE WITH LIVE EXPORT. They had an almost monopoly hold on the goat market and did old mutton into Mexico and elsewhere. Lack of stock from dogs and drought did them in, along with the dollar hovering above $1.05 for the last year or so.

Of course, the Union won't admit any of that. We know an old fella who used to work in a meatworks. Claims he used to be on a per carcass rate, with a bonus if he hit a quota. Until unions made the abs pay by the hour. All of the sudden he was earning the same as the man next door doing half his tally. So he slowed down, took it steady. It's that sort of thing that kills a business.

But that's only one aspect of Lee's reply. The beauty of the Greens is they will never have to actually develop a sound policy, merely call for (DRINK!) action in the hope they are listened to. In the last close election they hold some sway. But if it took them three days to come up with those answers asked by a simple cattle producer, God help us if they ever govern in their own right. It'd be horrible (DRINK!!).