Bundarrah Days

The Federal government is pending hundreds of thousands of your dollars to "rescue" these three green pirates.

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Unbelievable!

Reckon they're heroes? Take a look at the rap sheet of their boss - "Captain Paul Watson" founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

First of all he's wanted in Costa Rica for the attempted murder of a fisherman who crossed him and last year he was placed on Interpol's wanted list. Too much even for Greenpeace he was expelled from that organisation in 1977.

Watson also has a record for criminal assault involving the assault of a police officer and 1977 was convicted in absentia in Norway on charges of attempting to sink the small scale Norwegian fishing and whaling vessel Nybrænna and sentenced to 120 days in prison. Of course, he hasn't set foot in Norway since, nor in Costa Rica.

Watson is an internationally wanted misanthrope sought by Japan, Costa Rica and Norway. He is persona non grata in other countries including Australia. Yet we are spending your money to "rescue" his associates - men who are fonder of whales than other people.

The Mountain Cattleman lost a great man this week. Three times president, Doug Treasure, passed away after a long and determined battle with mesothelioma.

Our family will always be grateful to Doug for his courage in standing up and joining us when we drove cattle back to the Bogong High Plains for the first time after the Bracks government tried to evict us. Doug was a strong source of encourage and support.

We respected him also for the strong Christian faith and principles that he endeavoured to live by. That is a tall order for anyone and Doug succeeded better than most.

At Doug's funeral service in Stratford on Friday his family and friends recalled a man with a great sense of humour and hospitality, a born teacher and ideas man. He was tough, too. Only a couple of years ago he rode from Dargo across the mountains to Merrijig for the MCAV Get Together.

They remembered him with joy, not sorrow. And laughed at his regular response to the greeting, "How are you, Doug?" which will never be forgotten. "I'm pretty good......seasonally adjusted."

Personally I remember a man who was a deep thinker, open to ideas and committed to just outcomes. He was a bushman, a horseman and a man of the Dargo High Plains - the place where he was most at home.

Vale Doug, we will think of you often!

Kermit Burke, we're ashamed of you. What a barefaced, shameless and atrocious attempt at face-saving you came up with today. LAUGH OUT LOUD!

The Victorian Government must ensure the cattle are out of the Alpine National Park by April 8 you say, right around the time they were due out anyway.

What you're actually saying is you've given the Victorian Government 15 business days – until April 8 – to refer its current grazing actions for Federal assessment or you will force a referral. That’s the shortest time frame you can give under Federal environmental law.

So of course, that's why you waited until today to make your announcement so that the timeframe fits the schedule for the cattle to leave the park. Transparent.

Be honest for a change. No one on this side of politics has been fooled for an instant. Wry smiles all around. You're a mockery and that's a shame, really.

The Victorian Government was elected on a clear platform of returning cattle to the high plains. They have a mandate from the Victorian electorate.

You're a Minister in a minority government that doesn't have a hope of re-election. Like I've said before, a tinpot dictator of a minister in a tinpot government.

Yes, the cattle will be out of the Alpine National Park early to mid April. But that was pre-arranged long before you made your announcement today.

I s'pose we'll see you in December when they go back up. If you're still in government, that is! And that is doubtful.

UPDATE:

Just saw Burke on ABC 7.30. He mentioned what he called "the Maguire situation."

It is quite obvious Mr Burke has no idea what the issue is and why I have cattle grazing in the Alpine National Park.

It's really quite simple. The legislation is factually wrong. This means that it's validity is in question. If it is invalid I am entitled to a new seven year licence and so is every other mountain cattleman.

At the end of the day the Victorian Government has to decide whether it believes the National Parks (Alpine National Park Grazing) Act 2005 is valid or whether it should be repealed.

That is Victoria's decision and it has nothing to do with Burke.

Finally, Burke's announcement today does not apply to my cattle. I don't jump at his command.

It is not as if I am without support in the Victorian government. I do have strong and determined support and the word from my supporters is stand strong. That is what I am doing.

On the other hand if Victorian Minister for Sustainability and Environment Ryan Smith asked me to remove my cattle I would certainly be sympathetic to the request, just as he has been extremely reasonable in his dealings with me.

The debate over alpine grazing is not about the environment. It has never been about the environment. It is about the destruction of an Australian cultural icon.

Witness the faked outrage of the Victorian National Parks Association and Federal Environment Minister, Kermit Burke, over 400 head of cattle participating in a comprehensive scientific study by an internationally known and respected scientist.

The outcry is out of all proportion. Where was the outcry over the former government's lack of funding for the control of noxious weeds and the elimination of feral species, particularly wild dogs, foxes and deer?

On Parks Victoria's own estimates there are up to 200,000 feral deer, mostly big sambar, roaming the Victorian high country. Are they doing less damage that 400 head of cattle which are depastured there for around four months?

There is something seriously wrong when a Federal Government allows foreign people smugglers to change the face of the nation against the wishes of the population and then makes war on its own people who are practicing a cultural heritage which dates back 170 years and may well be environmentally beneficial.

Wildfires in 1998, 2003, 2006-07 and Black Saturday should have well truly delivered the message that green management of Victorian forests and high country was having devastating consequences. At least the Victorian Coalition Government has the guts and foresight to look at all kinds of actions designed to reduce the threat of wildfire.

There is no environmental case against alpine grazing. As I have already pointed out numerous times when the Bracks Government allegedly banned it in 2005 only 15 per cent of the Alpine National Park was subject to grazing licences and only 6 per cent was actually grazed.

The Greens, the Victorian National Parks Association and certain members of the Gillard government have an almost pathological hatred of Australian culture.

Mountain Cattlemen, seen by many as living symbols of Banjo Paterson's Man From Snowy River, are tall cultural poppies who must be cut down to ensure that nothing remains of the old Australia.

Only when we are a fast fading memory will the green eco-fascists be satisfied.

"We recognize that separating humanity from nature, from the whole of life, leads to humankind’s own destruction and to the death of nations. Only through a re-integration of humanity into the whole of nature can our people be made stronger. That is the fundamental point of the biological tasks of our age. Humankind alone is no longer the focus of thought, but rather life as a whole . . . This striving toward connectedness with the totality of life, with nature itself, a nature into which we are born, this is the deepest meaning and the true essence of National Socialist thought."

Ernst Lehmann, Munich, 1934

Federal Environment Minister in the most anti-Australian government of all time, Kermit Burke, is apparently most upset with the email correspondence I sent him a couple of weeks back.

http://bundarrahdays.blogspirit.com/archive/2011/02/22/i-have-written-him-a-letter.html


So much so, in fact, that he has apparently been croaking with indignation to some chosen journalists who in turn have been seeking me for comment.

I know this due to a phone call this morning from a friend who has been contacted by these journalists asking for my phone number.

They haven't caught up with me yet but no doubt, as professionals, they'll track me down sooner or later and I'll be happy to talk to them.

UPDATE
Apparently we've been mentioned on the news today. I'm told there is great excitement over the fact that we have cattle in the Alpine National Park. The fact is, however, they've been in the park every summer since the Bracks Government tried to ban us. We drove the cattle back into the park in the public spotlight in the company of ABC TV on January 10, 2007.

I've been interviewed on ABC radio this afternoon. It may be on the news but I would think the cessation of the exceptional circumstances relief is more newsworthy than a few cattle in a national park.

Kermit Burke, the Sydneysider who plays at being the Federal Minister for The Environment, sneaked into Victoria's Alpine National Park last week and asserted he didn't need the permission of the Mountain Cattlemen to be there.


How childish!

Kermit wants to kick out cattlemen over frog

I don't need his permission to be there either, a fact of which I've informed him via a personal email. See previous post.

He's a bit of a headcase, Kermit! Read what he said about the much needed alpine grazing/fuel reduction study instigated by the Victorian Government.

"This is the first time in living memory that a government has introduced an invasive species into a national park."

Invasive species actually defines any species that has been introduced to an environment where it is not native, and that has since become a nuisance through rapid spread and increase in numbers. Quite simply, that does not describe cattle.

But if it did Kermit should bear in mind that his own party, which declared the Alpine National Park, did so while providing for the continuing presence of this invasive species.

Can you believe that this man was once the Federal Minister for Agriculture? Almost unbelievable.

Don't worry about the kicking out bit. We're not leaving till its time to bring the cattle down and that's not in Kermit's timeframe.

Frankly, I'm not interested in the opinion or doings of a tinpot dictator of a minister in an unelected minority government.

 

 

Picture courtsey of Vexnews.

THE AGE has fallen on hard times lately.  Circulation of the daily edition is down, way down, and the rivers of gold that once flowed from its classified pages have all but dried up.  Not so long ago the paper made about $100 million a year.  These days that figure has shrunk to $20 million and continues to fall. fairfax-media-is-most-shorted-australian-stock-regulator-...

It cannot be a happy situation for John Fairfax executives, especially Greg Hywood, a highly regarded former journalist who has just been elevated to the CEO’s post at Australia’s second-largest and most-troubled media group.  With the company’s Sydney flagship, the Sydney Morning Herald, in similarly dismal financial straits and the mailroom at the Australian Financial Review becoming a clearinghouse for lapsed and cancelled subscriptions, Hywood must be wondering what he can do, what rabbit he can pluck from the hat, to reverse his company’s slide into bankruptcy and irrelevance. 43774.html

Well, here is a simple suggestion, Mr Hywood:  Take a long, hard look at your journalism.  More particularly, do something about your reporters’ apparent compulsion to serve not as conduits for facts but as ardent promoters and sly propagandists of their pet causes.

The Mountain Cattlemen’s expertise is raising cattle and knowledge of the alarming, ongoing degradation of the Alpine environment, so media criticism is something they  normally leave to others.  But in the case of The Age, which has mounted a concerted and grossly unfair campaign against alpine grazing in both its editorial columns and news pages, those two issues come together.  Day by day, Age writers have regurgitated the talking points of the Victorian National Parks Association, paying nothing more than lip service to the idea of fairness and balance.

But before we get to the latest example it is worth noting that, when it comes to reporting based on bias and preconception, the Age has form.  Anyone curious about those wider sins need only consult the Australian Press Council’s recent ruling in the case of former Brumby cabinet member Theo Theophanous, whom the paper accused of raping a woman on his office sofa.1472.html  There wasn’t a shred of truth to the story, as the Council ruled and a court concluded.  As the Press Council also noted, that travesty of fair and decent journalism was, in part, the slimy result of an undisclosed personal relationship between the reporter and Theophanous’ mentally troubled accuser. theophanous-will-not-stand-trial-for-rape-20090724-dvh9.html" and a court concluded.  

You can read the Press Council adjudication here 1472.htm – or, for more in a similar vein, you can consult the Sunday Age of February 20, 2011, where you will find a story under the byline of the paper’s state political correspondent Melissa Fyfe.  Apparently the Age learned nothing from its Theophanous humiliation because the same crimes against truth, the same bias and willful blindness to inconvenient facts, are once again given pride of place in Fyfe’s work of fiction "Doubt on Cattle Trial's Impartiality. doubt-on-cattle-trials-impartiality-20110219-1b0fi.html

But let us save you the expense of buying the Sunday Age, which only encourages them.  We read the Age so you don’t have to, and below you will find, point-by-point and paragraph-by-paragraph, a refutation of every single element in Fyfe’s story.  The information in italics was made available to Fyfe before publication, yet it was omitted from the published report.  Laziness?  Incompetence?  A steroidal contempt for fairness and the right of reply?  Keep reading and judge for yourself.

First, though, a little background on Fyfe who has never made any secret of her green sympathies.  Late in 2009  she jogged the entire length of Australia’s eastern seaboard to “raise awareness of global warming”. climate-run  Her paper endorsed that effort by giving her daily blog space to report what she witnessed, from a dying Murray-Darling System 20091117-ijz2.html" (funny how the recent rains have brought it back to life, eh, Melissa?) to the anguished musings of a restaurateur who believes it is environmentally unacceptable to grow grapes in Mildura. 20091123-itk5.html (about time to get back to those folks and see how they are coping with all this fresh water, eh, Melissa?).  Basically, Fyfe is a rolled-gold, green-blooded champion of the cause and in her latest piece on the alpine grazing issue she gives full voice to a  manic bias.

Here’s the story with our comments. Decide for yourself if Fyfe is a reporter or an activist and if, as thousands of former readers have concluded, the Age no longer makes any pretence of wishing to be taken seriously as a newspaper.:

THE independence of the Baillieu government's controversial alpine grazing trial has been called into question….

And who is calling it into question? Very likely the people behind  the scientifically flawed report that prompted the expulsion of cattle in 2005. Moreover, some of those same people may stand to benefit financially if they are given a supervisory role in any amended trial or in any committee formed to oversee the trials. More on this in a minute.

 … with the revelation that cattle farmers have raised money for the scientist leading the experiment.

This is totally false.

The Mountain Cattlemen’s Association Victoria has never, ever raised money for Adams, nor has he received a cent from the members. In 2008, the Association learned that an Adams’ research program looking into the relationship between fire and alpine grazing in the Snowy Mountains was running out of funds. From what we understood of Adams’ research, its thrust and findings appeared likely to validate the wisdom of indigenous owners that the bush in general, and alpine grasslands in particular, need to be renewed by regular burning or slashing. Aborigines did this with their firesticks and mosaic burning, a fact attested by every single account of the early explorers and settlers.

As restrictions on fire became more pronounced it was cattle that controlled the accumulation of dried snow grass.

The Cattlemen  thought  Prof.Adams’ research was worth supporting and, at a 2008 board meeting, voted to enquire if  it should besupported  it financially. This decision was no different from the then-state government’s support for the academics whose critical report on alpine grazing was the catalyst for the 2005 ban. Actually, there is a difference -- that “research” was funded by the taxpayers at the behest of a  backbench labor committee( three from Melbourne) who  The Cattlemen  believe had a predetermined outcome planned for their report

However, the idea to support Adams’ research went no further --  no money was raised nor handed over (see below). All this was repeatedly made clear to Fyfe by telephone and email last week, as she was “researching” her article. She chose to ignore all of it, every single word that did not mesh with her preferred narrative.

So, just to recap, no money was raised, none changed hands, no financial relationship exists that might call Prof Adams’ work into question. Indeed, very few Mountain Cattlemen have ever met Professor Adams.

This comes as federal Greens MP Adam Bandt this week finalises Commonwealth environment law amendments designed to force the Gillard government to shut down the trial, which has reintroduced 400 cattle into Victoria's Alpine National Park.

Bandt, your quintessential inner-city Green, hails from Fitzroy, where cattle raising is not a major industry and what passes for “the environment” is that lovely lemon-scented gum in the front yard of a fashionably renovated terrace. While Bandt’s ignorance of alpine ecosystems is understandable, his posturing disregard for the law is astonishing, given that he is a lawyer by training and trade.

Simply put, the six Alpine National Park areas involved in the trial are all under state jurisdiction.  Bandt can whip up all the amendments he likes, have his political profile polished to a deceptive brightness by the likes of partisans and allies in the Fyfe mould, but none of that preening and spotlight-seeking will change the law one iota. 

The Baillieu government chose the University of Sydney's Mark Adams to run the trial, which it says will measure whether grazing reduces high-country fire risk.  Cattle were banned from the park by the Bracks government in 2005.

Why wouldn’t the government select Adams?  He is the Dean of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources at Sydney University, has served on international bodies, is an expert on alpine ecology and has been widely published and peer-reviewed.  And notice the snide little snipe at Adams – “which it says will measure”.  Is Fyfe suggesting  that Adams’ research is a put-up job, that he is not to be taken seriously as a scientist?  Apparently she is, and this is par for the course.  In earlier Age stories the word “scientific” has  been enclosed in ironic quotes, the snide inference being that it is anything but. state-takes-two-steps-back-on-conservation-20110113-19pqy...

 The Cattlemen  have grown accustomed to the lies and slurs that are peddled to gullible reporters, then re-broadcast without qualification or review to the broader public. It is not nice, it is not fair, but it is what  they  have come to expect. Adams is not a player; he is a man of science and has built his reputation and career as such.  If, after having his integrity repeatedly impugned, he takes legal action against The Age, who could blame him?

The Mountain Cattlemen's Association of Victoria has since campaigned to return to the park.  Last year, the Coalition promised grazing would resume.  Since January, cattle have grazed in the park at no cost to the cattlemen.

At no cost? This is 100% false.

Apart from the time, effort, transport and related costs that have been borne by the cattlemen from their own pockets in order to give this study a chance of success.  One Cattlemen assisting with the trial has reported to the MCAV that his costs to date for repairing infrastructure and opening tracks is about $10,000.

A 2009 edition of the association's journal Voice of the Mountains reveals that the group considered Professor Adams an ''ally'' and pledged $10,000 to his research into the impact of grazing and low-intensity fires on water production in catchments.

Then president Christa Treasure wrote: ''The cattlemen see his work as vital to our cause and we have pledged $10,000 this year … But he needs $500,000 a year to continue his long-term study - if anyone would like to donate … please contact our secretary.''

After making a passing reference to the $10,000 in The Voice of The Mountains, the MCAV annual magazine, published each January  nothing ever eventuated.

The MCAV made it clear to Fyfe that it did not raise money for the scientist.  The first line of the Age story is false.  Both she and her editor were  told this a day before publication but chose to print the accusation.

There was general discussion in 2008 that the MCAV might support work being done by Adams because it was in its field of interest.  This never occurred, but the Age and its reporter maligned the MCAV anyway.

 It must be remembered that the cattle had been removed from the Park in 2005 and there was no thought in early 2009, when that edition of Voice of the Mountains went to press, that cattle would ever return in 2011 or that Adams would be involved, as has transpired.

It also should be noted that much research in Australia is supported by private funds in many areas. 

The VNPA is now calling for donations to underwrite its campaign for the removal of cattle and it is believed they are working with other scientists to achieve this. stop-alpine-grazing-appeal-donation

Current Mountain Cattlemens Association president Mark Coleman said the $10,000 ''tentative pledge'' was offered to Professor Adams, but not accepted.  In an email to The Sunday Age, Professor Adams said the University of Sydney has ''never accepted or been offered funds'' from the cattlemen.  But the Victorian National Parks Association says the pledge puts a question mark over his relationship with the cattlemen.

So, there was no payment and Adams’ employer repeats that there was no payment, but none of that matters to Fyfe.  Instead, she turns for her cues and talking points to the Victorian National Park Association, whose paid operatives staff-members most likely picked through the back issues of Voice of the Mountains in order to come up with this pathetically weak slur. 

As a reporter, Fyfe contents herself with mere stenography – but only if she is taking dictation from those on her side of this contrived “controversy”. 

''Mark Adams seems to have been given this job without any due process.  It is clear he was hand-picked for this job.  We need to go back to square one and have an independent group of scientists look at the research needed in the park,'' said spokesman Phil Ingamells.

Ah-ha! Here we have it, what this story is really about! If Ingamells, whose scientific credentials extend no further than once having driven a tram for a living, gets his way, Adams will have a posse of partisan, publicly funded scientists looking over his shoulder, second-guessing his research and throwing up a screen of media confusion to pre-emptively discredit his work.  And that would be but the start.  With those same partisans leaking and misrepresenting developments to the eager likes of Fyfe, any findings will be rendered so muddy, so incomprehensibly tangled, that they will be useless.

Ingamells and his ilk had their chance with the back bench anti-cattle Labor-sponsored “researchers” – if anyone was “hand-picked” it was the committee  that produced the report leading to the banning of cattle in 2005. Now another scientist is taking another look, but because fair and principled science is anathema to people whose primary focus is spin and manipulation, Fyfe rejects it.

Mr Coleman said Professor Adams, the University's Dean of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, works in fields of interest to the association.  ''It is quite proper, indeed [the Association] has a responsibility to its members, to take an interest.''

This is what passes for balance at the Age. Fyfe might have quoted Coleman’s fuller explanation of why the Association saw Adams as an ally.  She might have reproduced a paragraph or two from the emails that tried in vain to address the piffle she was being fed by Ingamells et al.  But no, that would be journalism, proper journalism, so it didn’t figure in Fyfe’s error-riddled hatchet job.

The reference to Professor Adams as an ''ally'' must be taken in context, he said.

Notice how Fyfe neglects to explain that context, the same context laid out in our italics above.

Here is how the Association explained its position in an email sent to Fyfe on the Friday afternoon before her story’s publication:

“This comment has to be taken in context.  The work Prof Adams was doing was at long last reflecting what the fathers and grandfathers of the Mountain Cattlemen had been saying for many years about grazing assisting fuel reduction.

  “Adams’ work was the first ever undertaken by a scientist that the MCAV regarded as objective and independent, and they were pleased that at last it was occurring.”

The Baillieu government has refused to answer questions about the cost of the trial and how much Professor Adams is being paid.

Perhaps the Baillieu government has simply concluded that it will never get a fair hearing nor a straight-arrow recapping of its comments from the likes of Fyfe, so it is simply taking its time getting her the information.  To a new government with much on its plate, satisfying the demands of a strident partisan may be a very low priority. If so, who can blame them? 

The Department of Sustainability and Environment also told The Sunday Age that aspects of the trial have the support of the Australian Academy of Science.  The academy, however, reiterated last week that it does not support the trial in its present form and believes it will not produce ''credible scientific evidence''.

We understand that, of the Academy’s many members, a mere five – yes, FIVE – have expressed that view.  If Fyfe called the Academy to learn more that perspective vanished from her report.  If she did not call them, why not?  Fairfax is all but broke, but surely it can afford a local telephone call, which would have drawn the response that the Academy has no position on the trials and that the views expressed by a handful of its members are theirs and theirs alone.

In previously referencing the Academy, Fyfe noted only that it is “taking an interest” in the trials. top-scientists-urge-halt-to-alpine-grazing-trial-20110129... Three weeks later she is reporting that the Academy “reiterated” its opposition.

If Age readers were curious how this alleged change in the Academy’s position came about, Fyfe stiffs them for an explanation. 

The Victorian National Parks Association has received a report from consultants Ecology Australia that says the trial breaches Victoria's National Parks Act.  This is backed by legal advice from the Environment Defenders Office.

Give Fyfe credit for consistency. Her story began with a misrepresentation in its first paragraph and concludes with a pair of self-serving assertions that do not survive a moment’s scrutiny.

Once again she turns to the Victorian National Parks Association as the source of her preferred wisdom, citing the commercial enterprise  "Ecology Australia, a for-profit consultancy, which questions the study’s legality. home.htm

 What readers need to know is that staff.htm Ecology Australia’s executives and employees also signed  highcountrygrazing.pdf a group letter, released to the media on January 27, that demanded “an independent panel of scientific experts to oversee all aspects of the research into cattle-grazing in the high country, including its initial design, is necessary to ensure scientific credibility of the current research trial”.

In other words, Ecology Australia rather fancies a good deal of state money being devoted to the imposition of a panel staffed and directed by exactly the sort of people who work at Ecology Australia, the goal being to hobble a project overseen by another scientist they have identified as holding a dissenting view.  It would have been nice if Fyfe had mentioned that but, then again, this is the Age we are talking about, where fairness has become such a quaint, remote concept that its writers apparently cannot imagine it being applied in other field of human endeavour.

As for the Environmental Defenders Office, Fyfe might have mentioned that it is the unofficial in-house counsel to legions of green groups.  As to the credibility it brings to its causes, its web site features  5_reportingecoterrorismsabotagevandalism.pdf a helpful, eight-point guide for journalists that urges them against the use of the term “eco-terrorism”:  If there is no conclusive proof (as distinct from circumstantial ‘evidence’ like a banner, leaflet or anonymous letter or message) it is best to avoid using the word ‘eco-terrorism’ altogether.”

Another Environmental Defenders Office pamphlet gives candid advice on manipulating the media to maximum effect: 4_hasslefreenon-violentaction.pdf “Few direct actions can achieve changes in corporate or government polices without media coverage.”

As Fyfe  cites the opinions from Ecology Australia and the Environmental Defenders Office, the MCAV thinks it would be fair to also inform readers about the relationships linking the Age newsroom with the VNPA and other activists groups orchestrating the anti-grazing campaign. What are the financial and personal connections between those groups and individuals, for example?

Fyfe’s  story makes much of one word, “ally”, in a single edition of Voice of The Mountains, implying that it is some sort of smoking gun. In the interests of full disclosure, would she care to release a record of her own contacts and allies in the anti-grazing groups, the information they fed her, and the spin they requested she put on it?

Don’t scoff, because The Age has form here, too.  One of the factors leading up to the ouster of former editor Andrew Jaspan was the leaking of an email from the Earth Hour people instructing him on the stories they expected to see in his paper and how they wanted them presented.

It would make for good reading if Fyfe were to release her own emails, but don’t hold your breath waiting for such a story to appear.

So there you have it, Fyfe’s story and its shocking inaccuracies.  If Greg Hywood hopes to save The Age, it is this sort of journalism that represents the biggest threat to his masthead’s survival.

As for Fyfe, as a journalist she makes a good jogger.

Drama queen and Green Federal MHR for Melbourne Adam Bandt has drawn a line in the alpine humus. He's giving Federal Minister for The Environment, Tony Burke, two weeks to stop the Victorian government's alpine grazing study or he'll introduce a private members bill, he says.

He must think there's a Brokeback Mountain in the Victorian Alps. Poor "merry" chap - he's doomed to disappointment.

Bandt is an urban green luvvie . He's been in Parliament five minutes and is still wet behind the ears. National Parks are a state issue. None of his business.

Even Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke with his sabre rattling has only been threatening action under the National Heritage legislation which, by the way, doesn't mention grazing as a threatening process.

And I don't really need to mention the fact that the ALP hates Bandt with a passion, even if Gillard has a pact with Bob Brown. You don't pinch a true blue Labor seat and expect the ALP to cozy up with you especially when you're an ALP traitor.

The fact that Bandt is supporting Gillard's minority government doesn't give him any influence. Attempts at blackmail will create enemies he can't afford to make.

Country Victorians should be outraged. Bandt is the Member for Melbourne. The Alpine National Park is none of his business. He should be concentrating on representing the interests of his constituents which include things of great moment for his minority supporters like gay marriage and AIDS funding.

Bandt is a former solicitor and partner at Slater and Gordon and used to think The Greens were a bourgeois party.

And you thought it was a woman's prerogative to change her mind!

Mountain Cattlemen are quaking in our boots Mr Bandt.....not!

A national parks activist calling himself Paul n of Echuca is upset because the Weekly Times poll on cattle returning to the alpine national park ended up like every other poll on the issue - overwhelmingly in favour.

Paul n reckons it was dodgy. Read his comment.

 

"Amazing how the WT poll on Alpine national park grazing was running at over 70% against for over 2 weeks, then overnight it is now 75% for.... very dodgy"

 

Posted by: paul n of echuca 8:56am Tuesday

 

I can shed some light on that. I noticed that the poll was running well and truly against us and I immediately knew that it was being manipulated. A certain national parks organisation does this every time there is a poll on this issue and I have caught them out before.

Indeed, Phil Ingamells of the Victorian National Parks Association pleaded with me to "talk it over" when I threatened to expose his group for attempting to fudge a Victorian Farmers Federation poll on the same issue in 2005. In that instance a single phone call resulted in a similar turn around.

Last week, realising that the same old cheats were up to the same old tricks, I contacted the Weekly Times and alerted them. They had the facility to trace the votes and they did. Suddenly, our side went from losing badly to winning overwhelmingly.

I don't know how the Weekly Times actually dealt with the cheating but they did and that is all that matters.

Cheats never prosper.