The ABC of media bias

I have a little rule I, until now, have always stuck to on this blog and in my general dealings with the media.

Never ever attack, criticize or in any way risk offending a media organization. They are far too powerful and will simply bury you and whatever cause you stand for just for spite if you dare offend their sensitivities. 

Today I'm forced to make an exception to that rule after coming across this little gem

Now if that is not a loaded question I don't know what is.

 The very structure of the question makes it impossible to vote no and you can bet it won't get a mention on media watch either, one could only imagine the smug reaction from Jonathan Holmes if a commercial news organization tried to get away with skewing a question against climate change in this way.  

I have already written a detailed letter to the ABC pointing out where I believe they are exceeding their charter and portraying a biased picture of live export to their mainstream viewers. I received a limp wristed response from Alan Sunderland pointing out that they believed their coverage of the issue was fair and balanced and that both sides of the argument were given air time in their programs, he even cited the example of Barnaby Joyce's two or three 10 second contributions to 'Australian Story' as providing balance to that programs 30 minute lionizing of Lyn White.

Interesting to note Gleys Oogjes' admission on that program "With that first footage we didn’t think taking it to the government would be effective. We thought that exposing it to the community was the first thing to do"
  
The Four Corners program 'A Bloody Business' has a lot to answer for in terms of bias. The program briefly skimmed over the multi-million dollar abattoir owned by Elders in Indonesia that had been using stunning long before the filming. They also neglected to mention that four other abattoirs were already using stunning with another two in the process of converting. Some twenty five Indonesian abattoirs, accounting for 45% of all the Australian cattle slaughtered in Indonesia were either at or close to OIE standards at the time Four Corners went to air and these abattoirs formed the basis of the closed loop supply chain once the ban was lifted.

None of these facts were given any significant air time next to the constant emotive sad music and the heart breaking footage of animals being tortured in the dingy little backyard kill floors that were portrayed as the norm across the entire country.

Four Corners, it seems, did not want balance to stand in the way of a good Walkley.  

For all the supposed "balance" on ABC TV I do not recall seeing one positive story about live export in the last 15 months. I have however noticed the ABC takes every opportunity to present a negative live export story, Lateline (Hosted by Sarah Ferguson's husband: Tony Jones) seeming to be particularly generous with air time on any story that portrays live export as cruel and wrong. 

The only exception to this behavior being the excellent Landline program which Mr Sunderland also cited as  an example of the ABC's "balance".

Mr Sunderland the majority of Australian voters live in the cities.

City people do not watch Landline, or read ABC Rural or listen to the ABC's regional radio stations that have offered a robust coverage of both sides of the issue.

City people watch the ABC news, the 7:30 Report and Lateline. They have not been shown the human cost of the live cattle ban, the tears of the children whose parents were losing their livelihoods or given any opportunity to understand the many reasons the Live Export trade is necessary to both farmers and animal welfare. They have been fed story after story telling them this industry is cruel and inhumane and that is dangerous in a world where the sensitivities of people in inner city Melbourne matter more to decision makers than the livelihoods of communities in Northern Australia 

I want to ask ABC TV

Is it too much to ask for the positive side of live export to be shown in your prime time programs?

Is it too much to ask you to show the suffering you have helped to cause in Rural Australia to your city audience?

Are you afraid of giving informed industry representatives the chance to properly explain the animal welfare benefits of live export and the reasons the trade can never be replaced with a frozen meat trade?

Or would these actions provide too much "balance". 
        



 



 

The Stockmans Re-View- Courtney Smiths Freedom Trader Intensive

Few people know this about me but I'm a forex trading tragic!

Forex is short for foreign exchange which I define as the insane act of trying to make money by swapping lots of borrowed money from one country for money from another country. Then you swap it back when the original pile of money is worth more.

It is a fact that 95% of the people who attempt this usually lose money and then give up, usually after being tricked by a slick salesman into thinking that forex is the worlds easiest 'get rich quick'. 

Many lose their entire account by breaking the golden rule of forex trading, never risk more than 1% of your capital. 

Forex is not a way to get rich quick, it is a method of making money that is limited first by your lack of dedication, knowledge and discipline and then by the effectiveness of the system you employ, not the other way round. Many people, (myself included in the past)struggle to come to terms with the fact that THEY are the reason they are not successful not the system they trade.

I am not going to paint myself as a guru here.

Overall I have lost money so far but that is swiftly turning around and I intend to be back at break even very soon. The last few months have been a steep learning curve for me but I'm back trading with real money every night and quickly replacing my losses.  My automatic trading account has yielded double digit returns so far this year and I expect it to go much further now the summer break is over in Europe.

It is my goal in life to own my own farm. It's a big goal and I'm fully aware that I need $1,000,000 plus before I can even contemplate buying a horse paddock given the current land prices.

Given the scope of my dreams, low risk/ low return investments are simply not an option. If I'm going to achieve the goals I have in mind  I have to double or even triple my money every year for the next 10 years.

In the current landscape you have to be a millionaire before you become a farmer.

Enter Mr Courtney Smith,

I read Courtney's book Trading Foreign Exchange early in the year and loved the strategies he presented, they are simple, elegant, easy to use and profitable. Courtney's explanation of the fixed fractional system for limiting risk has changed my trading for the better.

Initially I struggled to implement Courtney's strategies properly, more through my own poor dicipline rather than any problem with the system. Courtney's systems are easily traded in 15-30 minutes a day but the system only works if you work it!

Recently I've tidied up my act and attended Courtney's 'Freedom Trader Intensive' (FTI) seminar last weekend to further my learning.

The FTI focus's more on share trading but forex traders will not be disapointed. Courtney's stock picking method is superior to anything I have ever seen, I traded shares for four years and read 4 different books on the subject and I never came close to finding the common sense techniques I learned at FTI.

Courtney's fundamental analysis methods take every publicly listed company in the world and thins them down to a useable shortlist of around twenty to fifty "best of the best" international stocks. He then shows you how to cull your shortlist down even further to attain "the best of the best of the best".

Courtney then demonstrated how to properly time your entry into the market using proven technical (chart) analysis techniques like the famous 'Channel Breakout'.

The goal is to catch most of the metioric rise of the worlds most dynamic companies while limiting your risk and using your capital to the greatest effect by only having it invested in fast rising shares.

Courtney's portfolio for the year is up 53% so far and I think that result speaks for itself. If you need further evidence he also made several predictions.

His predictions included a sharp correction for Royal Gold (Nasdaq: RGLD) and for a "correction in the US market followed by a rally in the fall" I will be watching to see how these predictions play out.

I enjoyed the Freedom Trader Intensive and would recommend it to anyone who possesses a healthy risk appetite and desire to make money from a limited amount of capital. 

My interview with ABC Rural

My interview with ABC Rural from the rural report (22/82012) set to pictures I took during the trip.

The picture featuring me shows me holding down a young bull that cut it's leg. In order to prevent the wound becoming infected we sedated the animal then washed, disinfected and dressed the wound with a bandage. He walked off the boat in Israel.

Another photo shows cattle resting contentedly on freshly laid sawdust while they chew their cud.
 
Don't believe everything the animal rights activists tell you, live export stockmen put a surprising amount of effort into caring for their animals and there is always two sides to every story.

Does my cat have a statistically better chance of surviving on a live export vessel than at an RSPCA shelter?

It's amazing what you find when you cut through the emotion surrounding live export and start looking at the hard figures. Live export boats are often accused of being "Death ships" and are branded "ships of shame" by one group of animal activists.

If you look at the 2011 figures for live export vessels on the DAFF website you will see that Australia exported over 3.3 Million animals that year alone. Sadly some 20,288 animals were lost but that means that 99.39% of all the animals exported arrive alive at their destination. Many of these animals do not just arrive alive, they put on weight. In some cases (Indonesia for example) the exporter is paid by the kilogram on arrival for the animals. It is therefore in the exporters interest to use the ship like a floating feedlot and to keep the animals in a contented condition so that they will continue to put on weight and be worth more money on arrival. Any animal that dies en-rout is also a big hit on profitability, hence the low mortality figures.

If you contrast the figures above with the figures provided in the RSPCA's 2010 to 2011 National Statistics the posturing about mortality's on live export vessels can appear ridiculous!

During this 12 month period the RSPCA euthanized no less that 37,177 Cats and 19,583 Dogs!

Together that's way over double the amount of animals that die on live export vessels.

Now of course some of those animals would be sick, injured, old or simply not fit to be re-homed but the devil here lays in what is not shown in the pie graphs of the statistics.

You see there is no representation here for animals that are held for too long or animals that could not be adopted in time but were otherwise healthy. The kicker is that 29% of dogs and 57.5% of cats were put to sleep while the RSPCA NSW branch alone made a whopping 12 MILLION dollar profit. How many more animals could have been saved or kept longer waiting for adoption with that money? 

Given the profits involved, the generous amount of money spent on the RSPCA's live export campaign, the RSPCA's other animals rights campaigns and the threats issued to fund political campaigns against an MP who spoke out in favor of live export it would be fair to ask if the RSPCA is doing enough to look after the animals entrusted to it's care. It is rather sad if your cat has a statistically better chance of surviving on a live export boat than at an RSPCA shelter.

The RSPCA's recent lurching into animal rights really comes up in the national figures with this little pie chart.

You see the RSPCA received some 54,398 cruelty complaints, choosing to prosecute only 275 and nearly half of those are livestock.  The RSPCA has an interest in prosecuting farmers wherever possible, farmers have land which they can be forced sell to pay fines and the RSPCA has recently been very happy to hop into bed with anti-farmer groups like Animal Liberation and Animals Australia.  Every cruelty case the RSPCA can publicize is a gift to the vegan lobby groups that happily portray one off incidents as common practice and farmers as cruel and ruthless industrialists.   

Lets not forget that the RSPCA is often consulted by government on ever tightening farm animal welfare standards in fact  few non government organizations have so much input into laws they are then entrusted to enforce. Farmers who abuse their animals deserve to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law however it is worrying governments put so much trust into an organization that targeted farmers so heavily during the live export campaign last year.  
 
The RSPCA is a large organization with a vast reserve of money and political pulling power that will continue to target Australian farmers along with other fringe animal rights groups as long as we allow them too. You can make a difference everyday by donating to local shelters instead of RSPCA owned shelters, sharing this blog or others like it and spreading the word with friends.

If we don't fight, we lose.

My First Journey As A Live Export Stockman - A Response For The Haters

First off let me say this. I was not paid any money or commissioned in any way, shape or form to write my article that appeared in Beef Central. I was paid the same wage as the other Australian stockmen aboard the boat representative of my previous experience as an outback stockman. I approached Wellard Rural Exports myself so I could see first hand what happened on a live export vessel.

Like I mentioned in my article I had been told terrible things happened aboard live export vessels by a high ranking member of Animals Australia.

My experience showed that person had no idea about the conditions aboard live export boats, perhaps because she had never done a journey on one in her life. 

I will leave the practice of paying bribes for stories up to the people on the other side of the argument. I can prove I wasn't paid but I would like to ask the animal justice fund how much this guy got paid. Thirty thousand dollars is a lot of money to buy the testimony of a disgruntled employee from a live export company or abattoir and I will leave it up to the reader to decide if such payments could actually encourage animal cruelty to be committed or exaggerated in pursuit of such a lucrative prize.

My article is frank and factual and it really is a shame animal rights activists see their cause as noble enough to make the truth irrelevant. 

Check out the live export moralities claimed by WSPA on the right hand side of this page (40,000) and compare them to the figure under fact number 2 here. (28,000!)

The actual figures are available on the D.A.F.F website and of course the WSPA is lying through their back teeth about how many animals died on live export vessels last year.

In fact I could spot several errors of fact on the WSPA page, the biggest porky pie being the ease with which we can replace live export with boxed meat exports. These reports are flawed with the laughable assumption that the rest of the world will pay current prices for boxed meat if we stop live exports.

Recent experience with Indonesia proves otherwise. Since the live export ban last year Indonesia has slashed boxed beef imports  along with reduced live export quotas. They are now sourcing illegally killed beef from India to make up the shortfall.

This means that instead of cattle being exported from Australia and killed in supply chain accredited abattoirs to OIE standards they are being hacked up by lawless backyard butchers in the back blocks of India and sold by criminals into our market.

The footage shown on Four Corners 'A Bloody Business' story was sickening and horrific. Thanks to the work of Lyn White, the exaggerations of the WSPA and the arrogance and ineptitude of Joe Ludwig those scenes no longer play out in four small abattoirs in Indonesia they play out every night in every backyard abattoir in India to every animal that takes the place of an ethically killed Australian animal.

It is a cold and uncomfortable fact that when we allow animal rights activists to interfere with industries they know nothing about the biggest losers are the animals.

My First Journey as a Live Export Stockman

My article published in beef central

To view click here

Thoughts on losing the farm

I suppose it's ok to put this up on the net now that it's common knowledge across the district. Scaddens Run, my families property for four generations, and my home, has been sold.  New owners will take over next year and I'll have to find a new place to live. 

The passing of an era in this way is unfortunately an all too common sight these days. Farm returns are far too low for my generation to make a go of things and still give our parents or grandparents a fair price when you consider land is often worth 40 times the gross returns it can provide in a single year.

For those of us that work the land, and then lose that land, there is a sense of loss that is difficult to quantify. It's not unlike losing a friend or family member. When we work the land we put our heart, our very soul into that land and when we lose that land a very large piece of ourselves goes with it.   

Life on the farm in these circumstances takes on a different feel, your no longer working towards goals and a future or managing improvements. You focus on maintaining the status quo while the days count down and you try not to talk about what we all know is coming. The atmosphere can feel like the house full of quiet relatives in the final days of a cancer patient. 

The day to day business goes on all the same. Feeding cattle all winter. A warm bale of hay to a cow is like a warm bowl of Nana's veggie soup is to me at lunch time, especially after an 11 degree morning in the sideways rain. Grandad has never believed in tractors with cabins so the oilskin is standard equipment while the cattle wait expectantly for you at the gate, they look up and almost say "thank you" through their mouthful of hay as you pass on your way back to the shed for another bale. With a bale of hay on the tractor your the most popular bloke on the farm. 

There are positive aspects to whats going on, Grandad has worked this place since his father bought it in the early fifties and both he and Nana are entitled to a real holiday, something I doubt they have ever had. The farm was sold for a reasonable price and I am thankful for that when I think of my friends in the north who have had their land values shattered in the last 12 months by the live export ban imposed by the government for only the governments sake. I often pray for the farmers up there, many of which are possibly in nearly as much debt as their properties are now worth. They face a far harder road than I, trying to save their life's work from the bank manager.

You see when a property is lost or sold or repossessed, when a farmer is driven from the land it is nothing like a man just losing his job. His entire family loses their home, their livelihood, the business they've built and a special lifestyle that few still enjoy in this country. When you see the effects from that perspective you begin to understand why so many farmers would rather take their own lives than surrender their farm. 

Dad stops by from time to time and we sit together with Grandad around the fire. In the flickering orange light I tend to find myself looking at my Fathers and Grandfathers hands and back to my own hands, similar but slightly less weathered. Hands that can build fences and fix machines, save lives and drive tractors, hands that can do any job on a farm you care to mention. Hands that for all their strength were never enough to save the farm. Even in the presence of strong men whom I deeply respect that fact can make that lump in your throat very hard to swallow.