Derryn Hinch – elected to the Senate focusing on criminal justice reform – has waded into a debate around the use of 1080 for baiting.
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Why is it that so many who are elected on very defined issues turn out to be vociferous on contentious issues?
Hinch’s stand on sex offenders is to be applauded, but it is hard to draw a link to the use of 1080 or the live sheep trade.
Joining the call for a ban on 1080, Hinch has placed the welfare of ferals over native animals and livestock, not to mention the environment and the financial well-being of farmers and the economy.
Maybe the senator should speak to the Wild Dogs Control Committee or the VFF to gain an understanding of the situation in Victoria, his representative state. Better still, take him to see a wild dog kill in a flock of sheep. Grandstanding helps no-one.
CLIMATE CONCERN
NFF president Fiona Simson is about the only reason you want to support the national organisation, which has fallen for the card trick called climate change.
She is impressive, speaking with a hands-on approach to agriculture. One has to wonder about the words she spoke last week – were they from the heart or was she pandering? “We’re at the front line of climate change – of increasingly erratic seasons, out of season rainfall or no rainfall at all and hotter, longer summers. As a sector, we recognise our role in combating climate change. We’re well-advanced in doing our bit as an industry to cut agriculture’s emissions.”
That all fine, but please explain how agriculture is playing its part. Unless you can, you have fanned the climate change fire without solutions. A leader needs to take their sector with them.