PRA: Farmers exposed to CSG contamination risks

Property Rights Australia Media Release:

MLA negligence exposes beef producers to unnecessary risks



Image created with Wordle

Property Rights Australia is calling for the immediate release of a report funded by Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) to determine beef producer liability if cattle are found to contain residues due to coal seam gas activity.

The report completed 12 months ago was never released with the consulting law firm advising that it should not be “due to the fact that it advises liability.”

Joanne Rea, chair of PRA said, “The question of liability lies heavily on the minds of cattle producers in coal seam gas areas and the reason why the research project was initiated. The non-release of this report raises so many questions starting with, “Did MLA and Cattle Council Australia (CCA) not question the validity of the law firm’s advice?  Surely they have a greater responsibility to the levy paying cattle producers.”
 

Instead of releasing the report CCA issued a communique which suggests that having signed a National Vendor Declaration producers are liable for any contamination. Beyond the essential advice that landowners should seek professional advice the information in the communique is not fully informed or helpful especially given the naivety of advising, “Find out about the CSG operator. It is important to be sure that you are dealing with a reputable company”

“It is unconscionable that MLA and CCA has left unchallenged the transfer of all the risks to the cattle producers and have not been diligent and proactive to find the means that producers may enjoy full indemnity from an often uninvited guest who shares the same business space,” said Mrs Rea; “Levy payers are not just PIC numbers; they are often farming families who would be devastated financially and emotionally if left exposed and subjected to quarantine because of contamination.” 

Landowners who have had specialist legal advice and where precise provision has been allowed for in a Conduct and Compensation Agreement may or may not have some protection in an event of coal seam gas contamination but not so neighbouring properties.

PRA believes that landowners need to be guaranteed complete indemnity for all adverse impacts, both immediate and consequential, upon their business, land, water and assets. Landowners need the assurance that redress is not just available for the life of the resource project.

The funding and structure of MLA and CCA are subjected to the current Senate inquiry into Grass fed beef levies. At the March 10 Canberra hearing evidence was given that the majority of MLA project reports are not released. Senator Heffernan said. “Even if (those figures) are just 10pc right, if you get a research grant surely you have to account for it.”

Joanne Rea reflecting on this remark said that, “Even if it was the case that only this one report was not released with no action taken the potential ramifications for producers is so great, an indication that MLA and CCA have been highly negligent.”

Chair of the Senate Inquiry, WA Labor Senator Glenn Sterle, remarked at the Canberra hearing, "It seems everybody is making money except the poor bugger on the land."

 

Meat Free Misinformation

Photo Tegan Kristine, sourced from the youtube 'Where does my meat come from?

 

First of all there has been the Meat Free Monday’s campaign with its sweeping statements of helping to stop climate change, saving the environment, health improvements and even helping world hunger. Fiona Lake answered very well these promoted benefits of abstaining from meat once a week in her blog article, Meat Free Monday Propaganda.

Now thanks to Voiceless this very week, March 18^thto 24^th, has been promoted as the designated week to go without meat in their Meat Free Week campaign. The same sweeping misinformed statements about saving the environment and also reducing perceived animal cruelty from what is an emotionalised  manufactured term, ‘factory farming’.

If we were taking notice there was a warning of this event back on the 1^st of March in his Choice Cuts opinion blog on farmonline Brad Cooper wrote in Voiceless campaign gains traction:

A CAMPAIGN urging Australians to eat less meat proves that some people truly do have more dollars than sense with a reported $60,000 already pledged to the cause. 

…The majority of the funds raised go to my old friends Voiceless, who wasted no time in climbing into me last week after I called them a “pro-vegan organisation opposed to producing food from animals”.

Well, given that Voiceless is prepared to pursue its own profit from a campaign aimed at discouraging people from eating meat – peddling misinformation, sucking in the gullible and misinformed, and undermining free enterprise – it’s not difficult to see which lifestyle it prefers 

The Beef Central article, Farm leaders question Meat Free campaign, gives quotes from NSW Farmers president Fiona Simson and VFF Egg president Brian Ahmed. From Fiona Simpson:

Ms Simson said the campaign seem like a good way to raise the profile of groups such as Voiceless campaigns like these organised by animal activist group Voiceless, but failed to take into account the people it was affecting the most.

She said there were 44,000 farming families in NSW whose livelihoods depended upon consumers eating the produce they worked hard to grow and this campaign lacked compassion for farmers - many of whom had recently experienced multiple natural disasters from bush fires to floods.

Ms Simson said farmers were committed to high animal welfare standards and many had been extremely distressed witnessing the deaths of their own livestock during recent natural disasters.

"I find the timing of such a campaign ill thought out and I encourage consumers to ignore the pleas of such groups and get behind our farmers who work extremely hard every day at growing the best for us to eat," she said. 

But the best response so far to the Meat Free Week misinformation comes from Tegan Kristine, a NSW beef producer in a youtube clip, Where does my meat come from? Tegan writes in the introduction to the youtube clip:

This Meat Free Week, Voiceless asks consumers to learn more about where our meat comes from. Come for a tour of Yandilla Beef Farm to find out more about beef production, animal welfare and the environment!

So let’s do just that and play the youtube, available at the link immediately above.