Australian Live Export - The Right Now

If you read all the below you might as a meat producer or any other type of stakeholder in WA Agriculture get depressed, throw your hands in the air, go into a darker place & give up. Don't.
This live export ban will get reversed because it is so deeply flawed, wrong, unworkable & is an impending disaster. Both socially & economically but also for the Labor MPs politically. 

They will have to reverse it. It will either get dropped OR there'll be a cabinet reshuffle, the minister will be dropped or promoted sideways & a new minister will use calm cautious language & seek an honourable exit for the Ban Plan that's really into a dumpster bin in the alley.

Only rests on a couple of things. Everyone being loud, relentless & never giving in.
Soon as a critical mass of people give up or go silent...the ALP will read that & compoliance to their decree & ram it through. The louder we constantly are, the greater the political dog likely to come back & bite them.
So don't get negative or depressed, embrace the chance, the opportunity to join a real movement for positive change. Join the fight to win & get others, as many as you can to join in. The louder & the longer the noise goes, the sooner the plan to ban will be dropped,

They will view silence as compliance.
I won't comply. 
Neither should you.
Get loud, get angry but control your temper & belt them 3 days to Sunday with facts & common sense.
They have none of these.
The plan to ban live export will fail if you fight. 
Dive in big, hard & loud...you can actually be proud & you can enjoy the fight because you will be right.

Here's some of the things you can tell others...and this is just scratching the surface.
Don't see these as death blows that you've given up on & avoiding, these are the reasons why the ban is flawed & a scandalous disgrace.

These are the grenades that have been thrown at you but look closely, Labor has thrown them at you & they  expect you to hold them close, accept them so then YOU will pull their pin for them.

Yes, pull the pin on the ALPs grenades & throw them back.

Win this, get louder than them, longer than them.

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Imagine a senior minister making a BIG announcement, a BIG change but having no plan attached. No vision what the outcome will look like, what will have to be changed to ensure no one is worse of with the change. No strategic plan with costings. Nothing, except an announcement.

Made worse, no public or stakeholder input prior. None.

Made worse, a committee is formed to gather ideas from the worst affected on how to actually transition.
That's not consultation as the committee's Terms of Reference, which the industry also had no input into, are specifically about how to transition, not if its a good idea or not. Just the how.

Made worse the committee are either Labor operatives, anti Live Export operatives of professional committee sitters or all of the above and have no industry experience, certainly no experience in Western Australia.

Made worse in that this will devastate WA which is the biggest exporting state with sheep & the export trade provides the best & biggest option for wethers whilst also holding up the WA red meat price. It's the obe bit of rare comeptiton in the marketplace that isn't controlled by the major supermarkets. This will deliver market dominance to them & any excess production will now end up in the bin.

Made worse that some of our Live Export customer countries have already said they will not buy our chilled or frozen.

Made worse that we, with World's Best Practice that is ESCAS will be replaced by totally unregulated countries like Sudan that lost over 15,000 sheep at sea in ONE LOAD. Or Brazil which is also non ESCAS & will be an additional 5 weeks at sea. No summer moritorium. And we also invest in training & infrastructure in our customer countries to improve handling, slaughter & processing...AT OUR COST. No other country has done this nor will be interested in do this.

Made worse, whilst there's little chance sending export sheep into a replacement Fozen/Chilled Market, there remains an additional problem of no replacement markets identified, no extra abattoirs planned to cope with the required kill & processing chains required. Then there's no staff to work in these unplanned, uncosted, unknown abattoirs for these unknown markets. Australians generally won't work in abattoirs now, we have to get people from overseas. Thank God for the Phillopino, Afghan, Pacific Islander & other foreign people who come to Australia to be greta hard working Australians & help build strong valuable contribution to the nation...but we don't have enough of these valuable staff now.

Made worse if sheep goes, we know cattle is next. How can it not? That will mean the complete closure of the northern half of Australia from anything to do with meat production. Pastoral leases will be worth zero. There will be no landcare & grazing forms the biggest part of landcare across northern Australia. Once it goes or even suffered just a 50% cut we'll see the biggest economic & ecological disaster in Australian if not southern hemisphere history. Rangeland country will have huge grass groth rates with NO grazing which unmanaged, ungrazed or even 50% drop in grazing means the fuel load with minimum 5-8 times higher. One lightening strike the smoke & fire will be very easily visible from space. The flora & fauna dvastation will be beyond Canberra's calculations. Beyond that, the rebuild cost for bitumen roads, water, electricity along the major highways will be jaw dropping.

So the decision makes bad economic sense, we lose valuable export trade dollars and the economic loss in WA will be vast & devastating because WA is the biggest sheep exporter. 

Add in, these foreign customers deserve the right to access affordable protein. Live export per kilo is a fraction of the cost of Live Export killed & processed overseas. A finished kilo of meat of any average cut is many times more expensive here PRIOR to export than a finished kilo of meat of any average cut on the foreign shelf. Many of these countries do not have our annual earnings, chilled or frozen processed here red meat will only end up in foreign restaurants, not butcher shops for average citizen consumers. For the average consumer in our Livex Countries, the processed here chilled creeps well into luxury item price range. There is the other issue..religious & culture issue of done there way. Some have argued that's a clever economic ploy to maintain jobs in their country. Even if correct, why is that wrong? Its their nation, their people & it make protein affordable to more people. 
Also add in culturally some of these countries are very sceptical & wary of frozen/chilled meat because in the past dodgy operators have frozen cuts to hide rancid meat. They also know, frozen & chilled can be accidently thawed, left in the heat, gone off & then refrozen to hide it. Wrapped in plastic you won't know you've bought rancid meat til its home & thawed.
They want live. To be honest, so do we. We rarely ever see frozen meat for sale in Australia. Why should we expect them to?

Transgenders, Transphobia & Trans Ideology

Yup, the US State of North Dakota passing a law that restricts people only using toilets that align with the biological gender/sex they were at birth. Trans women...gotta use mens toilets. Trans men gotta use the women's toilets. 

So that raises the issue of Transgenders, Transphobia & Trans Ideology. These were the questions I got asked.

Questions, do you support Transgenders?

Neither support nor oppose. What a grown adult cosmetically does with their body is their business, not mine...as long as it isn't dangerous to them or likely to affect others negatively. Just as the same as someone wearing a Millie Vanillie T-Shirt or a Socialism Rules or MAGA hat. I don't care. I might wonder about their head sense or motivations but otherwise...staggering indifference.
Several weeks ago I was in a local shop a trans woman was being served in front of me. I noticed, it was very noticable but I didn't care, no one was affecting others
So its not a political team stand off. Its someone's thing like dressing up as a Goth, Skinhead or like the music fesitval held on a friend's farm for, well for hippies where kids not born in the 60s or the 70s had fully immersed themselves into hippy culture & talk like late 60s pot heads. Go for it. Your choice, you're thing but not convinced its anythign more than very serious cosplay.
So I support anyone becoming whatever they want as long as it isn't damaging to them or negatively affects other people. I guess I support a person's right to do their thing but no I won't be encouraging it & I would not want people wrongly doing something they're life long locked into or try to revert bac with physical, emotional, mental damage & immense regret.
Fine line, but not hard to understand but easy for those wanting huge accolades for some sort of bravery...yup, I'm not your man. So define clearly what this support looks like to you. I might have support, you might think I don't & the difference is the different perspective of what support actually is.

Question, are you Transphobic?

No, I believe I am not Transphobic. Again because I don't wave rainbow flags & approve of drag queens at libraries doing story time performances for children doesn't make anyone transphobic. Just because I don't believe there are rights being denied to transgender people doesn't make me or others transphobic.
Start defining transphobic. Trans is a person who surgically & chemically alters their physical body to give them the appearance of their biological gender/sex AND then dress, act, like that gender/sex they are not.
As for phobia well a phobis is a somewhat along these lines... 

A phobia is an anxiety disorder defined by a persistent, irrational and excessive fear of an object  or situation.^[1] Phobias typically result in a rapid onset of fear and are usually present for more than six months.^[1] Those affected go to great lengths to avoid the situation or object, to a degree greater than the actual danger posed.^[1] If the object or situation cannot be avoided, they experience significant distress.

So a phobia is a clinically diagnosed psychological disorder. Having stood with a trans woman in the checkout line & I didn't experience any of the cliniical markers I'd say no, I'm not transphobic. I think we can all make a bit of a discerning judgement on whether we ourselves have a mental disorder & if we don't have the classic markers we're probably quite ok. If close friends & family spot things and say you might have a particular disoder, maybe go get professional advice. But if someone is a stranger, you don't know them & your basis of an unprofessional diagnosis is they have a different view to you on something...yeah that's not grounds for anything. Now if you said the Nazis didn't kill any Jews in WW2 & its all conspiracy I think we can say the claimant we disagree with is likely racist, Nazi, anti semite and using a false & grotesque historical lie. That's a reasonable deduction.
If you don't support Transgender Ideology, no you are not automatically a person with a clinical psychological disorder or phobia.
That's like how conservatives making a point & socialist/marxist types claim the conservatives are fascists...even though conservativism & fascism are polar opposite and unalignable enemies. Its a shut down technique. Throw a vile demonising title on the other person to avoid rigourous, respectful, fact based debate. That's how transphobe/transphobic is being used.

Question, do you support Transgender Ideology?

Again, hard to know exactly what it is. It seems to be very fluid & hard to nail down.
One pro camp has a starting point that says transgenders have gender dysphoria & their solution to their severe condition is surgery & regular use of strong synthetic hormones and chemicals for the rest of their life.

Another pro camp says no they do not have gender dysphoria because they do not have a mental disorder. They believe that gender dysphoria no longer exists & has been thoroughly debunked because gender is a social construct & can be chosen. Those that choose something that requires the surgery & chemicals aren't suffering a mental issue of any kind, they're just exercising their choice.

With those 2 starting points, I can't support gender ideology. Neither makes sense.
First camp are deciding what the treatment is for the condition they admit they have...which is away from medical & mental health professionals studies. The second camp, if women, that is those that qualify as having womanhood, are actually acting out a sub culture...like goths, skinheads, hippies. Its a lifestyle thing. That public toilets and gender divided sports are a result of personal choice that others MUST adhere so if someone wants to be a woman person they can enter woman acting people's sports.
The fact that generally only men can produce sperm & generally only women, have periods, can produce eggs & carry a baby through to birth...that is no longer a part of gender/sex. Why? because some people need it to be that way.
Apparently all people are people, its just that some are birthing people & some of them are men, some are women.
With that in mind...NO, I do not agree with gender ideology.
If you want to surgically & hormonally alter you physical body, that's your business but sorry, if you were born a man...you're still a man with your penis & testicles cut off & sculpted into a crevice mimicking a vagina. You do not have a vagina, you are a trans.

If you were a female at birth & you surgically removed your breasts & had flesh & muscle removed to construct something that looks a bit like a man's penis...it isn't a penis & you won't have testicles. You are not a man, you a trans.

The current pushing for kids to be able to transition is a crime against humanity. I'm not hearing a lot of trans people speaking out against this. If that's Trans Ideology, then yes I oppose it.
You're either going to have to ignore that or get used to that. Railing against people with a different view & saying they're transphobes is senseless & intellectually bankrupt.

Question, do I want to ban trans surgery?

Haven't thought about it. I think it has very question motives & debatable end results longer term.
Banning it? Well if its bad, you'd think medical associations would have backed away from it but they haven't the courage or see the immense amount of money to be made in this surgery.

For now, each to their own, including those that choose to not like it or refuse to accept some of the dud arguments used to try & support ti.

Live Export - Here's some of the Anti Live Export BS that rolls up pretending to be valid.

Yes, its back. The Australian Labor Party has brought in a plan to ban Live Export.
Everytime the extremist element rolls up, they talk emotive word salads that shy well away from facts & factual data & use profoundly vague moral arguments. It is an immense fail in rigourous & respectful debate as it infers a person with an opposing view is immoral, greed, keen on torture & generally all kinds of vile in a sinful nature.

Thinking "No can't be surely?"...well here's an example.

Now the thing is, never bag the people with abuse. That too is intellectually bankrupt, that too is thuggery. That too leaves it all to whoever is the loudest and the longest staying & not impartial to the facts & the factual data. No they're never going to convert us, we're never going to convert the animal extremists...but we can convince the sensible rational people watching on. Going in with the idea of metaphorically bending their nose is pointless and counter productive.

With good argument, making good points, the others watching will not be fooled by foolish premises AND although I'm very much against the plan by the Federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt, he needs to see us put up the wise & cogent view. He needs to see us gathering support & wise acceptance of the facts & factual data. He needs to see us dispel the emotionally charge verb spewage being calmly, respectuflly put where it deserves to go. The bin.

I don't believe there is such a thing as Social Licence. That's a post modernist Marxist tactic to knock people down use emotion & falsehoods. Its like yelling at someone calling them a fascist, misogynist, something-or-other-phobe or some other demonising moniker to isolate, diminish and defeat a logical, rational, factual argument. Often referred by some as "wrongful closure".

So don't bag this Sue person, if that's his or her real name. Lots of false name accounts pile on. This one has only been on Twitter 3 months & has ZERO followers and largely posts replies that a short sharp and emotive. So no point bagging them & perhaps they want that. There is the sense of thought that during protests, demonstrations or farm invasions that extremist activists hope someone will get physical. Are they up for a fight? No I don't think so. I do think they want to be assaulted perhaps not so much to go to court but to run to the public court of social media because they're never usually far away from a camera. They stunt up while the camera is rolling. 

Sue's 3 key themes.
Torturing
Greed
Compassion.

1) Torture is a criminal act. It is defined as a chosen act, as the wilful infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion, Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony and an experience or cause of severe pain or anguish.
There are & have been bad people committing cruel acts that no one defends. The industry has been clean up markedly to the point that the Australian Livestock Industry is clearly & easily defined as World's Best Practice. Its mortality rate & any other suffering metric is the lowest on the planet.
One of the countries that will replace us if we leave the trade is Sudan. Recently, in a trip much shorter than an average Australian one, the Sudanese carrier had a disaster. It lost 15,100 sheep at sea & few of the 700 that were recovered were any good & died not long after.
THAT is an idea of what will replace Australia. Now arguments aside of that unacceptable disaster...no animal activist groups protested in Sudan or the Middle East & Australian Activists which do include extremists that get labeled "Veganazis"...they were all totally silent due to the uncomfortable comparison between World's Best (animal welfare) Practice to the unregulated competitor who will replace us & possible continue to over load their carrier ships unlike Australia's fully regulated & monitored ships. Torture is a criminal act if committed on humans or animals. Penalties apply.
There is no wilful criminal acts of torture.
NOW THIS...is when the activists will pivot & say yes the Australian link in the chain has improved but the cruelty remains in the Middle East. Does it? If so is that really a problem because if it is, its not the Australian Live Trade that's the problem its outliers in the Middle East, it certianly isn't regular & rampant & if it were...why is it ok to remove Australia & Sudan takes the higher market share?
Is it better the sheep die on board or drown at sea so they don't suffer cruelty by outliers?

Got news for you. If Australia leaves the trade, there is no downstream education, training and help improving the animal welfare of animals once they're landed. If you want good Animal Welfare in the Middle East you MUST have the World's Best Practice Australian Industry involved. Sudan will not offer sheep & cattle handling training or better kill practices.

2) Greed is the next emotive world splurge. Is it greed to make an honest living out of producing a cheap food source, an important source of protein in a 3rd world country that cannot produce that vast amount of protein at a price their relatively improverish can afford?
If we went all frozen & chilled, bad news. Some of the Arabic importers have already said if they're denied Live Imports from Australia, they will not buy frozen, chilled or where possible anything else from Australia. We're going to get hit with a trade loss & a possible regional trade embargo. Now if the chilled & frozen were cheaper than live they might in time be persuaded to take some. But it would requie massive subsidisation by Australia. It will also require the building of at least as many abattoirs as there are now. Why? Because Lamb chains are battling to keep up with the amount of kill space & kill time just for lambs now. To accomadate export sheep, its a different carcase, different size. They would have to close some of the Lamb Kill & Processing to take Middle East Export. In effect, the lamb kill is appalling now, it will get worse.
Oh just build more abattoirs & employ more Australians? Sure, except if that was financially viable it would be out perfroming, out competing Live Export now...and it isn't.
Its not a financially viable option or the market place would have seen it strive ahead.
Abattoirs have often been regarded as money holes. But hey if its such a good deal, extremists & other fact dodgers can push 30% of the superannuation, or more, into a Public Private Partnership to build abattiors and then staff & train people to run them. If its viable, the super funds will make the huge profits, the activists will have financial skin in the game. If that works, everyone's a winner.
I mean put your money in, otherwise we might conclude you keeping your money & not investing in the meat industry is selfish & greedy using the moral code activists use.
The activists wouldn't be greedy, selfish & hypocritical would they?
No, the claim of industry greed is bollocks. The idea the poorer people of the middle east want a red meat protein source they can actually afford is not greed.
Greed is an emotive false bolster to deflect from facts & reality.

3) Compassion the last big BS effort. If compassion or lack of it were actually a sensible argument the so called Animal Welfare Activists would be more likely to push for a rapid expansion of the the Australian Live Export Trade because its World's Best Practice, its been providing equipment & training to destination countries for better handling & slaughter practices over seas & it would, base dsolely on marketplace advantage lessen the chance of rogue players expanding who have no Welfare regulations and routinely over crowd ships & have no accountibiity. Now chances are, with the Civil War nature of Sudan & season boom and busts, livestock will be sought from other countries in South America like Brazil. Thats an extra 5 weeks at sea & they don't have a credible system like ESCAS.
You'd have to wonder about the legitimacy of Activists actually being about animal welfare at all. I don't think they are. I think they do not have any compassion except in the yelling of falsehoods at Australian Producers & Exporters. Its a false tactic that many lazy thinkers will fall for.

Now some of these falsehood claims are actually Moral Judgements. To make a moral judgement a person has to be intellectually valid & say what moral code or what religion, faith or cult they're using to make the moral judgement. Oddly this sensible logical pathway gets shot in the face & avoided.
They either have none or they have so much internally over whelming influence from a superiority complex that we must not only accept it with it explained, we must accept it is binding upon all of us without questioning it at all.
I usually ask & wait to hear the name of the moral code & hear it justified but it nearly always results in slurs that I or we are incapable of compassion & therefore won't accept it. That is we don't & won't accept the unexplained.

If you're genuine about Animal Welfare, you'd want the Australian Live Trade expanded & hopefully reach world market dominance & slowly but surely other competitors will see ESCAS, foreign training & equpiment for better practices as a must do if they're to compete.

If you're genuine about opposing greed you'd put your money in the game & build abattoirs to compete in the International Chilled & Frozen Market to hold up the production cycle.

If you're genuine about making moral judgements, you'd outline the moral code but also you'd lean not heavily, but solely on factual data & market conditions instead of falsely demonising people.

Of you're just against any animal production at all. You're from Vegan Ideology. I suspect that's the more likely hidden truth. I don't subscribe to that cult/religion dogma. You cannot impose your faith upon me & its clear to do so, you have to hide it & use false guilt & faux shame to redirect people well away from factual data & the truth.

Take them to task, drill down respectfully into whatever it vague premise the're trying to push upon us. In time I'm sure the government will see the truth & will not suffer the embarassment of being so easily fooled & causing Australia serious trade damage  



 

Firearms in WA - When MPs & Bureaucrats Bluff, Bluster & BS

I call them firearms. Sketchy lawmakers might call them weapons. I don't call them weapons as that word relates purely to the intent of the use. If you carve a roast with proper knife its a carving knife. If a person kills, injures or endangers another person with that carving knife its still a carving knife but the person is not charged with assault or murder with a carving knife, its assault with a deadly weapon. In intent only, the carving knife became a deadly weapon. But if you're to rouse people for political gain you'd probably, if you're an unfit public servant as an MP, you're like to ignite emotions, pour petrol on it & find someone to demonise. I call them firearms. Sketchy lawmakers with deceptive bias might call them weapons.

The new list of banned calibres makes no sense. Meanwhile there are nearly 90,000 licenced lawful firearms owners, a range of calibres that have never been involved in any gun crime are on a ban list. The reasoning is the ban list is to increase public safety when there has been no sudden increase in risk profile. No demonstrated threat has sudden risen. The risk level is the same as it was yesterday, last week, last year, 3 decades ago. IT IS UNCHANGED The new list of banned calibres makes no sense.

The Mental Health Tests Won't Help & Will Not Detect & Prevent A Gun Death Licenced users are going to be pushed into mental health tests which cannot predict future behaviour or actions but are there because of the cited 20 deaths by firearms, 10 were "suggested" to have mental health issues. Yes, "suggested" is the words the minister used. If any Member of Parliament is pushing through a bill in the Parliament that uses reasoning that amounts to that which is "suggested" then it is going to be very bad legislation. Good legislation is fit for purpose, has good supportive data & evidence, helps & benefits the majority of the state without being a detriment to lawful people current or future & will involve full and proper involvement of the stakeholders after a public & stakeholder consultation. We're seeing calls for more Upper House Committees because there is so little & often NO consultation outside the Minister & senior bureaucrats. THAT is a serious devolution of the proper democratic path of good legislation, its the slow removal of the proper democratic process. Happening in housing, forestry, Agricutlure, law & order health...all in deep fast spiralling descent. In regards the 10 alleged gun deaths where un-named mental health conditions were suggested to be involved...I hope this is not true but I was just told that nearly half, not half but nearly half of them were serving Police Officers who used actual WAPol Service firearms. This is at a time when we're also hearing in the Media that there is a record number of of WAPol officers seeking mental health services, some in a serious state (although I'd argue all would be if they're seeking help). The Police Minister claimed the numbers are up because stigma in coming forward is on the decline...again things aren't getting worse, things are spun to somehow project that things are actually getting better The Mental Health Tests Won't Help & Will Not Detect & Prevent A Gun Death

Let's just make 2 important points & one of them is repeating one... a) In regards the 10 alleged gun deaths where un-named mental health conditions were suggested to be involved...I hope this is not true but I was just told that nearly half, not half but nearly half of them were serving Police Officers who used actual WAPol Service firearms. And the way to reduce that is to give nearly 90,000 lawful firearm owners a mental health test that arguably won't help at all & ban some calibres that have not been used in gun crimes & there is actually no new elevated risk profile.

b) The only main risk to the public was putting a map on the front page of the West Australian of Perth Firearm Owners. Now maybe it was a coincidence but several break ins in the publicised map. The aim should be to run higher penalties for possession of illegal firearms with terms run consecutively. Target the crimimals, not the lawful. Make gun crime the biggest, worst penalties for a criminal. Then ramp mental health services for Western Australians & more so councelling for WAPolice officers both serving & retired. Remains notable that the announcement for the Mental Health Tests was on a Sunday. The day after the very prominent WA Liberal Party State Conference. They were getting big & very prominent press coverage and strangely the WA Police did the very unusual thing of making a huge bomb drop announcement on a Sunday. ONE A SUNDAY? It wasn't serious enough of an issue to drop it on Friday when he was at work? It wasn't serious enough of an issue to drop it anytime the previous week? Nope it was a political stunt & when it unfolded & looked absurd, the minister & the controlling bureaucrats went for a "banned calibre list" Who will lose firearms? Collectors, Feral Controllers/Hunters & Competitive Shooters. One competition the rifle start at $15,000 & you're looking at $15.00 plus per shot fired. Again in calibres not ever found to be used in any gun crimes so they cannot have raised any risk. THIS IS HOW THE SKETCHY & CRAFTY MANIPULATE THE OPTIC EVEN WHEN THEY ARE VERY MUCH IN THE WRONG. DON'T FALL THE BS.