Wongai Coal Mine, Princess Charlotte Bay, Cape York Peninsula

April 29th, 2012

A few years ago I wrote an R.M. William’s Outback Magazine ‘station story’ on a beautiful cattle station – Lilyvale.  Owned by the Shephard family for more than 80 years, it was the only cattle station that was a financially healthy pastoral business on the east coast of Cape York Peninsula.  Lilyvale has a relatively […]

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Our quarantine breach punishments are a sad joke

November 1st, 2011

A Peruvian bloke found guilty of smuggling an Andean saddle-backed tamarin monkey and a yellow-footed tortoise into Australia in July last year, just received a $6,000 fine.  It’s also mentioned that he aspires to be a doctor and is in his second year of a medical degree.   Well he can’t be blind and deaf and has a reasonable education, so […]

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John Alexander, Member for Bennelong – comment on Live Export

June 12th, 2011

John Alexander, MP for Bennelong (Liberal), has an excellent summary of the issues regarding Australia’s live export trade. How odd that it should take a politician from Sydney’s north west to provide the most sensible summary on the live export trade yet.  Clearly, a career roaming the world playing professional tennis plus a background in small […]

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Plant variety rights legislation affects us all

March 1st, 2011

The Seed Savers Network was created in 1986 in response to Plant Variety Rights legislation.  The seed savers network website is a mine of information, and issues discussed include the preservation of plant varieties historically, what is likely to happen in future, and worldwide issues.  For example a recent post on plant variety rights ownership: ‘Since […]

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Australian imports of beef from countries with BSE (Mad Cow disease)

March 8th, 2010

The good news: Tony Burke has just announced that due to public concern, there will be a 2 year delay on allowing the importation of beef from countries where BSE (Mad Cow) cases have been recorded. (Clearly, the general public are brighter than those who thought this was a good idea.) The bad news: the […]

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Beef importation from countries with BSE (‘Mad Cow’ disease)

February 26th, 2010

Who voted for a Government so utterly stupid, that they have decided to relax Food Safety rules and allow the importation of beef from countries that have had BSE (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy – otherwise known as ‘mad cow disease’)? No Australians have been inflicted with the BSE-related variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) and no Australian […]

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Australian Biosecurity & Quarantine

September 6th, 2009

Australia is one of the few countries in the fortunate position of having no other countries connected to it by land. So keeping foreign pests and diseases out should be a piece of cake, compared to the majority of other countries which have the infinitely more difficult job of monitoring massive quantities of road traffic, […]

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Imported pet food has killed cats so they stop irradiating it, rather than banning importation

June 6th, 2009

A link has apparently been proven between the irradiation of imported pet food and cat deaths. By law, imported pet food has had to to be irradiated, to ensure no pests and diseases are imported into Australia. As pet food is made from the very worst rubbish meat and scraps that can’t be sold for […]

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