Memo to Federal Minister Joe Ludwig: Australian Meat Industry Council and I agree

When I left my local butcher shop yesterday I came home with more than the modest amount of meat I can afford to purchase - I came home with a pamphlet from the Australian Meat Industry Council (AMIC) calling for the immediate suspension of all live cattle exports to Indonesia and that this suspension should not be lifted until there are assurances that animal welfare standards are applies to all live exported Australian cattle.

If all Argriculture Minister Ludwig and the Indonesian Government can offer is a vague hope that live export cattle will be stunned before slaughter, then I concur with the Council's call to ban live export to Indonesia.

Indeed I would go further and say that all live animal export should be permanently banned across the board. This ban to be implemented over a three year period to allow for some export industry adjustment.

The AMIC website states:

The Australian Meat Industry Council (AMIC) is committed to the highest level of animal welfare and the humane treatment of livestock. Our mission is to ensure acceptable animal welfare standards are implemented and effectively verified. AMIC affirms that livestock processing in Australia is conducted in accordance with national laws and international requirements, and enforced accordingly by State, Territory and Commonwealth inspectors to ensure that high standards of animal welfare are maintained at all times. In 2005, AMIC proactively developed and implemented the AMIC ‘Industry Animal Welfare Standards for Livestock Processing Establishments’ which integrate the national Codes of Practice, relevant State and Commonwealth legislation and other commercial requirements. These Standards are verified by Commonwealth and State inspectors and commercial auditors on behalf of customers. The Standards were developed by a national committee, comprising representatives from Government, science, animal welfare organisations, as well as technical experts and representatives from industry. As part of the Standards meat processors are required to ensure personnel are trained and competent when handling livestock. In the last three years over 300 personnel have undertaken the “Animal Welfare Officer Skill Set” course. Approximately 150 new livestock handlers undertake the ‘Livestock Handling’ course each year.

In summary
The Australian Processing Industry
• is committed to the highest level of animal welfare
• operates under strict state and federal animal welfare regulations which are verified by Commonwealth and State inspectors and commercial auditors on behalf of customers.
• has developed and implemented worlds best practice animal welfare standards
• invests in ensuring its employees are trained and competent in animal welfare

Update:

The Sydney Morning Herald 25 June 2011
Excerpt from Meat industry knew of Indonesian cruelty last year
[Please note this article contains video images which may distress the reader]

Meat and Livestock Australia and LiveCorp have repeatedly claimed that both bodies were unaware of the extent of animal welfare problems in Indonesia before the airing of a Four Corners program on May 30.
How much they knew is now the subject of a Senate inquiry.
Yet a report, commissioned by MLA and LiveCorp and handed to the bodies early last year, extensively documents every aspect of the abuse revealed last month.
The report makes repeated references to the shortcomings of the Australian-made restraining boxes, warns about the non-compliance with World Organisation for Animal Health standards, and says only four abattoirs in Indonesia had stun guns.
Most damning are accounts of slaughtering fully conscious animals, which suffered protracted, agonising deaths.
''At an abattoir in Sumatra the neck was struck with a knife using a hard impact to sever the skin above the larynx and then up to 18 cuts were made to severe the neck and both arteries,'' the report says.
''Bleeding was impaired in 10 per cent of cattle … possibly resulting in extended consciousness … In some instances where stunning was not used, the delay between restraint and slaughter was significant.''
On the performance of the restraining box, ''finding better methods of restraint with higher animal welfare outcomes is essential'', the report concludes. The ''mark 2'' box, designed to solve the problems, makes the plight of the animals even worse, the report says, to the point of being ''not acceptable''.
Thrashing, prostrate animals bashed their heads on the box's concrete plinth an average of 3.5 times before death. The report says: ''Where the severity of the fall was severe and head slapping occurred, significant animal welfare issues were identified that should be addressed.''
The halal practice of dousing the thrashing animal with water requires ''revision'', as ''disturbed behaviour … was particularly apparent when buckets of water were thrown over the animal before slaughter''.

CSIRO shows the air pollution science

According to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO):

Cape Grim, on Tasmania’s west coast, is one of the three premier Baseline Air Pollution Stations in the World Meteorological Organization-Global Atmosphere Watch (WMO-GAW) network. Baseline stations are defined by the WMO to meet a specific set of criteria for measuring greenhouse and ozone depleting gases and aerosols in clean air environments.

Full data updated monthly can be found at Cape Grim Greenhouse Gas Data

Click on carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide graphs to enlarge

Out of this world eye candy

An unnamed green nebula
courtesy of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope

Look how far the Liberal Party hasn't moved in the last year

The Australian Libs and Nats are definitely a one-note coalition under the leadership of Tones of the Fork-ed Tongue Abbott.

June 2010

July 2010

August 2010

June 2011

'Carbon Tax' plebiscite? Jeez Louise, whose dumb idea was that?

In Australia there is the ability to hold Advisory Referendums (also called Plebiscites) which in the present era are conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission on a fee for service basis.
These plebiscites involve voluntary voting on an issue and these votes has no legal force whatsoever.
Like national referendums, national plebiscites don’t have a history of giving the question framers the answer they want.
So who doesn’t have a right to insist that the Gillard Government contract the Australian Electoral Commission to run a “carbon tax” plebiscite costing somewhere between $69 million and hundreds of millions? Who also says he won’t be bound by the results if it’s a big “Yes” to a carbon tax, but who supposedly wants 14 million+ voters to turn out on a probably wintry Saturday to cast their votes anyway?
Who won’t be paying anything out of his own pocket, but expects the Government to cut back on what it delivers in the current Budget by dipping into funds supplied by the hard work of taxpayers?
Or if the Government understandably won't oblige, may even expect people like mining magnates Gina Rinehart and Twiggy Forrest to dig into their own deep pockets to force the issue for him?
You guessed it in one – Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, aided and abetted by his Coalition cronies.
Maud Up The Street tells me she phoned Tony Abbott's parliamentary office this morning and was told that Abbott doesn't intend to put any bill before the Senate or the House just yet - instead he intends to put a notice of motion on the House of Reps schedule foreshadowing a private member's bill on a plebiscite. Maud says that means it won't come before Parliament for a week or two at the very least and during that time the composition of the Senate will change. Something she says Abbott is careful not to mention if he can help it.

Potted History: Australia 1952 t0 1956 - Women as Reds Under Beds

League of Women Voters of South Australia (1909 - 1979)
Alternative Names
Women's Non-Party Political Association (former name)
Women's Political Association (former name)
Summary
Originally formed in 1909 as the Women’s Political Association, its name was quickly changed to the Women’s Non-Party Political Association and then the Women’s Non-Party Association. Catherine Helen Spence spoke at the inaugural meeting and introduced the major planks of the Association which were ‘Equal Federal Marriage and Divorce Laws’, and ‘Equal Pay for Equal Work’. In 1939 the Association changed its name to the League of Women Voters. This was an Australian-wide title that enabled its aims to be more widely known. The League remained politically active in these areas and was instrumental in the development of a Parliamentary Bill to enact the principle of equality for female and male parents which was passed in 1940. In later years the League developed a close relationship with the Women’s Electoral Lobby, acting as a mentor. In 1979 the League was voluntarily wound up as it was felt that the Women’s Electoral Lobby could carry on its work. Ellinor Walker gave the valedictory address.

There was a time not so long ago when standing up for women's rights and equal pay meant that Communisim was suspected by Government and ASIO.............

Today is UNCR World Refugee Day - time to remember that Refugees R Us

The global theme for UNHCR World Refugee Day in 2011 is “One  refugee without hope is too many”and it’s time to remember that Refugees R Us.
Many of our own forebears came almost penniless to Australia after 1788 because they had been dispossessed in Scotland, were persecuted because of their religion in Ireland, experienced poverty and discrimination across England, endured years of political upheaval and cultural suppression in various European states or were fleeing catastrophic wars and sometimes genocide.