Animal activists who break law should get same penalty as anti-abortion protesters
Animal activists who commit crimes must be hit with the same penalties – including jail time – as those who protest against abortions, writes Peter Gleeson.
Opinion
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ANIMAL activists who commit crimes must be hit with the same penalties – including jail time – as those who protest against abortions.
If the Palaszczuk Government is serious about ridding our farmers of trespassing extremists, it must apply the same law it now invokes for those who protest outside abortion clinics.
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As part of its pro-abortion laws, the Government introduced legislation which means that protesters must be at least 150m away from an abortion clinic. If they’re not the maximum penalty is $2600 or one year in jail.
In Victoria, a person was fined $5000 for protesting outside an abortion centre. Yet vegans can invade people’s private farm properties and chain themselves to plant and equipment in people’s workplaces. If you can go to prison for up to a year for protesting on a footpath, surely it is incumbent upon the State Government to lock up any extremist found to have broken the law in invading private property.
No arrests were made yesterday at the Warwick abattoir protest. Why are police so handcuffed when it comes to arresting vegans?
The Federal Government is doing its bit. Last week, the Coalition Government brought the Aussie Farms website under the Privacy Act, exposing it to potential penalties of more than $400,000 if it breaches the Act. Attorney-General, Christian Porter, said the activities of Aussie Farms Incorporated created an unacceptable risk to hardworking farming communities and producers. This is the organisation that published information about Australian farmers and agricultural producers including their names and addresses.
Listing this activist group as an organisation under the Privacy Act, now means that the company will have to abide by the provisions of the Act. Minister for Agriculture, David Littleproud, has repeatedly asked Aussie Farms to take the website down before someone was hurt or worse, but the group behind the website is refusing.
That’s the problem with many arrogant extremists. They are so obsessed with their cult-like antics that they are blinkered to the real world.
If I entered a suburban house without permission in Chermside or Capalaba I’d expect to be arrested, handcuffed and taken away. Not the vegans. Animal activists who are found by a court to have trespassed onto the properties of farmers must be jailed. The new laws – expected to be ratified Friday – need to be rushed through before we have a major incident. Farmers are so angry and frustrated at the constant invasion of privacy that they may take matters into their own hands. There are farmers now arming themselves with not only extra CCTV capabilities but electric fences and guns. There are genuine fears that somebody may get hurt. That’s in addition to the biosecurity risks that happen when activists storm a farm.
Animal activists, encouraged and fostered by their own PR firm, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, have waged an ongoing war against the racing industry. They want jumps races outlawed, whips suspended and greyhound racing banned. These people are zealots. By all means protest, but invading the private property of hardworking farmers is a disgrace.
GETUP! HYPOCRISY
THE hypocrisy and double standards of the Labor-Greens attack dogs, GetUp!, over the Sultan of Brunei gay-bashing scandal is appalling. Brunei has introduced laws which include execution by stoning for homosexual acts and adultery, prompting global outrage.
In Brisbane on Thursday, the Royal on the Park Hotel celebrates its 50th birthday and is citing a visit to the hotel by gay entertainer Elton John in the 1980s as one of its highlights. It was Elton John and actor George Clooney who have complained loudest about the draconian homosexual laws introduced in Brunei.
In London over the past 48 hours, protests have been staged outside hotels owned by the Sultan of Brunei, including the Dorchester and In Los Angeles, the Beverly Hills Hotel. According to Get Up!, its work is driven by “our values, not party politics’’.
“We want to live in a more just, equal and compassionate country for all – no matter where you come from, how you worship or who you love,’’ its website says. “A win for equal love is a win for all of us.’’
Seriously? As an activist group, where is GetUp! when a country that wants to do business in our backyard aims to stone to death those who are homosexual? Oh that’s right. This “independent’’ political arm of the Left is putting most of its energy right now is to unseat Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott at the upcoming Federal election. What a farcical joke Get Up! really are. What opportunists. What hypocrisy.
If Get Up! was fair dinkum it would be marching the streets, waving placards outside the Royal on the Park, urging people not to support the Sultan’s hotel. They’d be engaging with the Gold Coast City Council, urging it to refuse approval for the Sultan’s proposed Surfers Paradise development. They’d be urging the Federal Government to ban Royal Brunei Airlines from starting new aviation routes to Australia in June.
The sooner Australians wake to the destructive socialist ideology of Get Up! the better. If you live in Dickson and they knock on your door, please, chase them away with a broom.
IN BRIEF ....
DOGGED BY ROUGH JUSTICE
LIVE baiting charges have been dropped against Hall of Fame greyhound trainer Reg Kay but it’s too late. Kay is a broken man. Once a high flyer, one of the best trainers in Australia, he’s now a shadow of himself. The fact the charges have been dropped continues this extraordinary trend where racing industry participants are being charged with serious offences, sent packing by racing authorities and, then, in most cases, they are having the charges overturned on appeal.
The thing that angers industry participants is that when a greyhound or harness racing trainer is charged, the matter is put on the QIRC website, and invariably picked up as a news item by your ABC. When the person is then exonerated at appeal, it’s crickets from QIRC and the ABC. The damage is done.
Meanwhile, still no word on when a new one-turn greyhound track will be built in southeast Queensland, despite being announced by the Bligh government in April, 2008. That’s 4025 days ago.
RINGING IN THE CHANGE
THE Bowen Chamber of Commerce will invite former Liberal MP Julia Banks to one of its meetings after she posted a selfie on Twitter with Stop Adani ear rings (pictured). The photo sparked a quick response from Liberal senator Jane Hume, who accused Banks of hypocrisy.
Banks is running as an independent against Health Minister Greg Hunt for the seat of Flinders at the upcoming election. She has accused her male colleagues of bullying but hasn’t named anybody. The sooner we see the last of Banks in public office the better.
VALE JOHN BURTON
SAD news with the passing of former Gold Coast Bulletin editor John Burton. Aged 86, “Burto’’ was a true newspaperman and gentleman with a great eye for nurturing young, talented reporters. Those to benefit from his mentorship include Sky news boss and former Australian editor in chief Paul Whittaker, The Australian’s two-time Gold Walkley winner Hedley Thomas, Courier-Mail Gold Coast bureau chief Greg Stolz and Courier-Mail assistant editor Des Houghton. His funeral is Thursday.
WHO’S HOLDING IT TOGETHER
THE Left of the Labor Party is trying to take control of the Together Queensland union with assistant secretary Irene Monro having a crack at branch secretary Alex Scott. It’s all part of the takeover of the ALP by the Left, which now controls the numbers in caucus and cabinet.
PM TOLD TO GET PROPERLY KNOTTED
AVID reader reckons the Morrison Government and senior Ministers can’t even do a proper Windsor tie knot. Says Labor boys nail it. Then worst offenders, he says, are Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
CUTTING TIES WITH ZIPLINE
WITH the departure of Lord Mayor Graham Quirk, expect the Mount Coot-Tha zipline to be axed. Western suburbs Liberal candidates are privately telling new Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner that it will hurt them badly at the ballot box.
BOARD GAMES
RACING Queensland chair Steve Wilson is tipped to be on the Cross River Rail board with former Lord Mayor Graham Quirk headed for the RQ board
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I know we are in holiday mode, but if you don’t mind I’d like your opinion on an issue of great importance before we all clock off for the year.
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