Fifteen Hundred Camels

[Stephen Whiteside]

Fair enough, Bill. As you say, the gap between town and country in this country is very wide, and I think it's only getting wider. Still, this web-site does its own little bit to try to narrow the gap at times.

[Maureen K Clifford]

totally agree on your take of history Stephen - mostly it is the sanitized version that is offered..something palatable that the masses won't get too upset about. Australian history is totally tinged with blood and cruelty, mayhem and murder and injustice to man and beast...and from what I see and read and hear - still is..

As Bill pointed out, rabbits drew the short straw, then dingoes, camels, brumbies, feral goats and pigs, foxes and roos, Aboriginal people, bushrangers, sparrows, crocodiles, Tasmanian devils etc etc. How many species of Australian wildlife have been made extinct since whitey took over the country??? How many more will we be able to eliminate???.

But then you read other countries history and it is no better - my current reading is on South Africa - same problems. Wildlife massacred, African people massacred, tribal wars fought, death, despondency,dictatorship and deviousness running rife.

Can't change history - would hope one could prevent similar idiocy happening again - but it needs to be told not shoved under the rug and even that is no guarantee. Greed and $$$$ rule.

I think those of us who have a mind to do so Stephen are honour bound to try to write our history in words which perhaps may get 'taken in' by those who don't know and have avoided finding out about what really happened - once upon a time.

Cheer

Maureen

[r.magnay]

...sorry Maureen but I am really going to chuck the cat amongst the pigeons now...our governments, Territory and Federal recently struck a devistating blow to a major industry due to some reports from the RSPCA...a noble organisation no doubt, however, I fail to see why everyone got so cranked up with an event or events that are not even happening in our country, when the very same people can stand by and watch thousands of dogs treated very, very poorly, native animals like echidnas being thrown into a fire alive and then pushed back in with a stick until it is dead and cooked, catching goanna and breaking their legs so they can't escape, then throwing them into the boot to keep them fresh until they are cooked....at least they can't walk out of the fire to be pushed back in with a stick, and then there is the sea turtles and dugongs.... and on it goes, funny how we are so selective about who is cruel and who is doing what comes natural......

[Stephen Whiteside]

I guess you're talking about Aboriginal practises, Ross. I worked with 'Save the Whale' for many years, and was outraged at the 'loophole' that allowed indigenous dugong hunting - especially as they were using tinnies and rifles. Then I worked in Aboriginal health in Fitzroy (that's Fitzroy, Melbourne, not Fitzroy Crossing!) for eight years and saw the other side of the story. So now I see both sides. I don't like animal cruelty no matter who is the perpetrator, but it's hard to see what else to do under the current circumstances. Any suggestions? Sending live cattle to Indonesia for slaughter isn't going to help the echidna or the goanna.

[Maureen K Clifford]

Cats and pigeons ain't a good combination and I agree totally Ross...why would you think otherwise??. Regardless of tribal or cultural traditions cruelty to animals is abhorrent..and totally unacceptable in my book....I don't have a problem with the slaughter of animals for food - well I do but no sense going there - but I have major issues with the manner in which it is done regardless of which country that may be.

The RSPCA does what it can with the resources it has available but certainly cannot solve every issue try as they might, and would certainly not condone any cruelty to any species. I guess that in the grand scheme of things a few goannas for tucker as opposed to thousands of cattle and sheep for the live export market means that the echidnas and goannas are sadly going to miss out.

Plus with the majority of RSPCA workers being volunteers and city based the $$$$ and manpower don't stretch to have people on the coal face - even getting them to areas a few hours from our cities poses difficulties for those same reasons.

In a perfect world these issues would never arise - but as we know the world is far from perfect. The cow cocky or sheep farmer or city tradie or Joe Blow who transports his unrestrained dog in the back of his Ute in the middle of summer - when the tray of the Ute is red hot is just as guilty of cruelty as the next bloke but how many think of that?? Poor bloody dogs hopping around all over the place with not even a spud sack to stand on. Had a go at a few for that and always the response was that they didn't think and that is the truth of the matter - people basically don't think.

Regardless of race, religion, colour or creed any one who mistreats kids or animals is a person of dubious parentage in my book.

Cheers

Maureen

[r.magnay]

G'day again Stephen, you blokes must think I have nothing to do today...but I am actually spending some time in the office so I sneak a few minutes on here from time to time! In answer to your question about my suggestions re the cattle, first of all, us stopping supplying them will simply mean someone else will...that doesn't help the goanna, echidna, cattle or aussie cattle cocky! Not all facilities were bad from what I could gather, so target the ones that are, get them trained or closed or whatever it takes, but don't make a blanket statement to satisfy a group who are more interested in political mileage than animal welfare! ....how can I say that you may ask, the answer is that they had this footage for several months before making it public, so they allowed the cruelty to carry on to suit their own agenda.
My question still goes unanswered Maureen, how can anybody justify what the RSPCA did....or does when they will do nothing about the forementioned cruelty, daily ignoring these things because it is too hard.....we don't want to be seen as racist do we? The RSPCA and both governments got a lot of mileage out of trashing the live cattle market, but they know they would not get the same percentage of support if they try to address the others. Every day people get serious fines and or gaol for cruelty to animals, and rightly so, but it has got to work for everyone, not just a chosen few......there you go Stephen, you thought you might start some debate with the camel story, well I am doing my best, we have drifted off the camels a bit but still in the same vein.

[Stephen Whiteside]

Ross, the argument that 'if I don't do it somebody else will' doesn't really work for me. We get that in Medicine a lot. "I might as well provide the script for Valium, because if I don't he/she will just get it down the road, and why should I miss out on the fee?" If it's the wrong thing, it's the wrong thing.

I would be a little reluctant to take your 'politics' and 'six months' argument at face value, too. I know at least one of the people involved in the live cattle export campaign very well, and I know her to be a person of very high integrity. If they did delay the release of the footage (and I don't know whether they did or didn't) it doesn't mean they didn't care about the issue. They may just have been being very smart, and carefully judging the politics of the situation. The fact of the matter is that the government was absolutely flooded with protests after the Four Corners show, and it would have been extremely difficult for them to do anything other than what they did.

[r.magnay]

...'morning Stephen,
If you had a patient who wanted valium and you didn't believe it to be warranted I am sure you would seek an alternative solution, that is what I am suggesting, stopping the sale of cattle to the offenders will do nothing for the protection of cattle...only Australian cattle! I get very cranky about the do gooders of our society who in many cases weild a lot of force over issues to simply suit their ego or agenda. If a thousand head of cattle get mistreated from Australia, why is it any better for a thousand head of cattle from say America to be mistreated instead? It is simply shifting the blame, (just as you describe about the valium) the problem is too hard so we just ban cattle sales and then it looks to the rest of the world that we have fixed animal cruelty.
Do you reckon the flood of protests would have been any different if the footage had been released six months earlier Stephen? Now I don't know for sure that the six month wait was correctly reported either, but then I don't know if the origional cruelty reports are as we thought, they both came from the media so I guess it is ok to pick the bits out that suit us and ignore the bits that don't. What I do know to be a fact, is that the afore mentioned cruelty to native animals and domestic dogs is a regular occurrence, on top of that, sometime ago there was TV footage showing an echidna being cooked alive on a a documentary style show, I didn't hear anyone trying to cripple the country over that! I would be very interested to see what would happen if sixty minutes aired a segment on some of the things I have mentioned, on prime TV with a great deal of hype and sensationalism....as they tend to do, would it create the same sort of impact....I rather doubt it....too hard! ....as you say, at least the camels got a humane ending....

Actually Stephen I never mentioed 'six months' in my earlier post by the way.

[Stephen Whiteside]

Yes, I see, 'several' months. Sorry about that. I suppose we have taken this debate about as far as we can. I didn't want to upset you Ross. We live in different worlds in a sense, and both of us are very influenced by our own environments. All the best.

[r.magnay]

no worries mate, yes I don't think we are solving any of the problems as we go,...and no you haven't upset me in the least, I hope it doesn't appear that way. I am grateful for a chance to have some civilized debate about things...this one in particular.....'til next time then