Changes not welcome
I write regarding the story published in Rural (The Border Mail, June 10) “Times are a changing”.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
I am disillusioned, disappointed, disgusted and disgruntled at the decision to set a six o'clock curfew on store cattle sales at Barnawartha NVLX.
Disappointed that more consultation, particularly with producers was not forthcoming prior to a decision being made.
To make decisions that affect people's livelihoods is fraught with danger. I was always taught to put yourself in the other person's position before you take aim.
Disillusioned in the fact that our saleyard organisers cannot see the bigger picture, where we the producers are being slugged 10 per cent already selling through the yards. Add to this the extra pressures that affect the aesthetic condition of our stock when put through saleyards.
Producers will start to look to other markets where cattle are treated better and can be shown off to their best potential, rather than being all hollowed out, gaunt and stressed. Producers are the key to the success of your yards and your incomes.
Disgruntled that as a proud producer who strives to better my product, through pasture improvement, improved genetics, more expensive farming practices and improved animal husbandry, that my product will be subjected to longer periods in the yards, locked away from feed and looking “run of the mill” by sale time.
Disgusted to think that a man of the ilk of Brett Shea would pull the trigger on OHS issues when the weighing situation could easily be solved by staffing rearrangements.
I too would like to make staff changes at 1am as I battle with a calving heifer in the frost and fog in the middle of winter. I often find myself ankle deep in mud, under a flickering half-flat torch light, precariously positioned on a fence post to guide my frozen hands towards what l hope will be a new life (but the wife would object I'm sure to the staff change). Life's not too bad at your end of the chain, Brett.
On behalf of producers, I would like to thank those agents who argued against the curfew and severely question the motives behind those who voted to introduce it.
I call on you to inquire of your agents and explain to them the hardships this curfew will create.
Mike Walsh Granite Flats Pastoral Company
Protect people instead
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and Health Minister Jill Hennessy repeatedly use the “Oregon Model” to sell Victorians physician-prescribed suicide.
Last week the Oregon Senate passed Senate Bill 494. Touted as a “simple update” to Oregon’s current advance directive, this bill is designed to allow for the starving and dehydrating to death of patients with dementia or mental illness.
Concerned Oregonians, including nursing homes dedicated to making sure patients receive the food and water they need, fear the bill, written in a deceiving manner, is little more than the state colluding with the healthcare industry to save money on the backs of mentally ill and dementia patients.
The US disability rights group Not Dead Yet has uncovered evidence that under the Oregon Model, non-terminal disabled individuals are receiving lethal prescriptions, the only certifiers of non-coercion and capability need not know the person, no evidence of consent or self-administration at time of death and that pain is not the issue: unaddressed disability concerns are.
Parliaments should protect people, not sanction killing.
Denise M Cameron, Albury
Where’s the discount?
All the recent debate about rising energy costs and energy sources of the future has prompted my memory.
Wasn’t the scrapping of the carbon tax supposed to bring energy costs down? Tony? Anybody?