By Gary Mallard, Bega
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The Master Chef of vegetarian politics is at it again, this time admitting the cynical nature of his activities upfront.
The website of Greens’ firearms spokesman David Shoebridge advises the “Animals in the Wild” photographic competition has been launched as “part of the Greens’ campaign against recreational hunting, and in particular, the photographic hunting competition run by Narooma’s pro-gun and pro-killing Huntfest”.
The message is very clear; the Greens are not pro-gun or pro-killing.
My question is simple, is this proposition a brazen lie, or a subtle manipulation of the truth aimed at deceiving the residents of NSW?
The Greens claim to be pro-environmental protection, and if that is so, they must accept the Australian bush is seething with feral species that are causing great harm to the environment, devastating native species many of them rare and endangered.
So if The Greens are not pro-killing, I challenge David Shoebridge to divulge the details of his plan to domesticate or re-home 7.2million red foxes, 200million rabbits, 150,000 water buffalo, 2.6million wild goats, and 23.5million pigs.
We can catch up about his plans to not-kill 200million cane toads, 300,000-plus camels, 300,000 brumbies and 5million donkeys at another time.
Of course The Greens have no plans to re-home these creatures.
Oh yes, they denounce the "pro-killing HuntFest" and they willingly mislead people by playing the emotive “they kill things” card at every opportunity, but in fact The Greens’ own policy position on feral animals includes the use of professional “killers” and poisons such as 1080, which has been denounced as cruel by every animal welfare agency in Christendom.
The garnish on this Master Chef’s tabouli of deception is the use of native Australian animals on the competition’s promotional material.
The inference is clear, don’t let the big bad hunters slaughter kangaroos, koalas and kookaburras, all strategically chosen for their Aussie icon status.
It is illegal to hunt such animals in NSW, as every hunter knows.
Poachers, on the other hand, will do what they will, just as they have done through the centuries.
If The Greens ever decided to work cooperatively and respectfully with law abiding hunters to stamp out this limited yet deplorable activity, they’d find us willing partners in possession of very useful expertise.
Alas, The Greens’ fanatical bigotry makes this impossible.
The Greens are definitely anti-gun, but they are very much pro-killing, despite their efforts to deceive you into believing otherwise.
Like the Borgias they favour poisons, which are notoriously difficult to target at a specific species, are by no means painless and always wasteful because the otherwise free-range organic meat cannot be consumed.
The Greens also favour the use of professional hunters whose activities, despite their accreditation, render their victims no less dead than a conservation hunter’s gun or bow.
But there is an enormous elephant in the larder of Greens’ deceit - something they are more than happy to be very vague about.
They vocally condemn Australia’s white Anglo-Saxon hunting traditions, but they are silent on the matter of Aboriginal traditional hunting, which includes the harvest of native species.
Is the abolition of Aboriginal hunting practices next on the Greens’ chopping-block, or does their cultural bigotry extend only to white folks?