Turnbull demands human slaughter… Malcolm Turnbull responds to one constituents on live cattle exports, with an unfortunate typo:

Like all Australians, I was shocked and deeply disturbed by the mistreatment of Australian livestock exposed during the Four Corners program on 30 May 2011. I thank you for your correspondence and I share your concerns.

There can be no justification for mistreating Australian animals in Indonesia or anywhere else. As Australians we do not accept cruelty to animals.

The Coalition supports the Government’s decision to ban exports of Australian cattle to abattoirs that do not practice human slaughter.

If we could have our way, Australia would only process, freeze and ship packaged meat to other parts of the world. But there are some countries where that is not possible for cultural and practical reasons.

We did see on Four Corners brief glimpses of good practice, where Australian Government and industry investment has provided modern stunning and slaughter facilities to some of the larger Indonesian abattoirs.

That is why we invest millions of dollars to improve animal care and education overseas. Through this trade we strive to be the instrument of change. Clearly, more needs to be done and the industry is committed to extending its work in upgrading Indonesian abattoirs.

Australia is the only country in the world actively working to improve animal care in our destination markets. We must use our influence in those countries to speed up progress on animal welfare reform.

The suspension imposed by the Government and supported by the Opposition, will remain until Australian expectations of acceptable animal welfare practices are in place. These expectations are not optional; they are integral to our requirements for the live export industry.

I thank you, again, for your interest in this important issue and I can assure you that the Coalition will continue to work to ensure Australia leads the world in animal welfare — both here and overseas.

Kind regards,
Malcolm

…and Ludwig pulls the email plug. A measure of the reaction to Four Corners’ revelations about the Indonesian treatment of live export cattle can be found in Joe Ludwig having to shut down his email system the following day:

This is an automatically generated response.

Thank you for your email to Senator the Hon Joe Ludwig, Senator for Queensland, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Manager of Government Business in the Senate.

Due to the large volume of emails received, I am unable to acknowledge receipt of each email personally.

Your email is important and will be dealt with as soon as possible. Response times will vary depending on the complexity of the issues raised. However, if you require any further information please contact my office 02 6277 7520. For electorate and constituent matters, please contact the office on 07 3229 4477 or toll free 1300 301 944 (outside metro area only).

If your email relates to an invitation or media enquiry it will be forwarded to the relevant staff member.

Thank you again for your email.

Regards
Joe Ludwig

Coast politics: Dobell branch rebels. It gets worse on the Coast, following on from Crikey‘s story yesterday on Belinda Neal. Last Sunday at the reconvened Dobell FEC AGM, the Ourimbah branch nominee for secretary was roundly defeated by the incumbent Cheryl Greenwald (Craig Thomson staffer) from Wyong. Under Greenwald’s stewardship, the FEC met infrequently, meetings were cancelled in the federal election campaign (then held at a BBQ without any notice) and finally they tried to hold an AGM without notifying all branches. A point which was raised by the alternative candidate. (The Tumbi Umbi and Wyong branches should be grateful as they did get an opportunity to have all delegates at the AGM ).

The Ourimbah branch candidate had been assured by some of their support, only to find that evaporated on Sunday. Seems if you’re from Ourimbah branch you must be a trouble maker! One member was overheard saying: “Anyone who has a rule book and can use it is not welcome on the Coast, unless your name is Kaila and you’re from Sussex Street.”

Left Right debate youth volunteering. The Left Right think tank is releasing a policy on youth volunteering in Brisbane tomorrow. Internal talking points have been sent to staff…

Fairfax Kiwi GM quits. Fairfax New Zealand paper The Dominion Post is looking for a new GM after Paul Elenio announced to staff in an email on Monday he has quit. He wrote: “Next month I will have been in the role of General Manager for six years and the move is timely, as the company embarks on major change, for me to step aside and give someone with different thinking and fresh ideas the opportunity to run Fairfax’s most successful division and the central region.”

Gina’s not greedy in the West Australian. I wrote a fairly unoriginal letter to The West Australian regarding the hoo-ha about “Carbon” Cate and the hypocrisy of Tony Abbott and his stance on the big miners. I remarked that at least Blanchett’s remarks aren’t dripping in self interest. The final line was (apologies to Bernard Keane): “I’ll take ‘Carbon’ Cate over ‘greedy’ Gina any day of the week.” The published final line was: “I’ll take ‘carbon’ Cate any day of the week.” Come on! If you are going to edit letters at least keep the intended meaning. What not cut the sentence entirely? Seems someone doesn’t want to offend Gina…