Agmates

Victorian / New South Wales 5th Generation Upper Murray farmer and small business person Stephen Blair speaks out about his persecution by DPI bureaucrats that resulted in him being fined a total of $17,300 for NLIS (National Livestock Identification Scheme) breaches in an Albury Court last week.

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NSW / VIC Farmer Stephen Blair (pictured) writes:

DPI Grandstanding Premature and Inaccurate

The charges laid by the DPI against myself arose after extensive surveillance and undercover action by the Victorian Department of Primary Industry (DPI), NSW DPI and Hume Rural Lands Protection Board.

My only crime is running two properties, one in Victoria, on the border at Tallangatta and the other, Little Billabong at Holbrook in NSW. The properties are 100 kms. apart in direct line, and 150 kms. by road. They are located in adjoining local councils/shires, being Towong in Victoria and Hume in NSW.

Click Here to see the location of my properties and the Corryong saleyards in Victoria.

The DPI admitted in court that utilising the same NLIS ear tag on different properties under one management/ownership, in adjoining local council areas, in both states is common .

They also admitted that there are several examples of people utilising either State’s tag in the adjoining State, where a property crosses the river or border .e.g. Jingellic, Victoria/ NSW and Gondawindi, NSW/Queensland.

Utilising Victorian NLIS tags in NSW is by itself not a breach of the regulations, but doing so and then removing them from the property is.

In relation to this particular incident there were 800 cattle in the yards, with eight people working on them and trucks going to sale at Corryong (VIC), agistment in the North and back to the home property in Victoria.

Photo #2: Our property’s have been in the grips of the 6 year drought that has reeked havoc in Southern Australia. The shot below is of myself and my family hand feeding our cattle. We have not only had to contend with the stress of this ‘never ending drought’ but on top of that the ‘harassment’ of these DPI bureaucrats has taken a huge toll on my personal health not to mention my families well being.

I could not guarantee that cattle tagged that day did not leave the property. I could establish that some may have been tagged and left the property so I pleaded to a number less than 25, Not 177 as the DPI charged and are apparently still claiming.

The DPI have admitted that they could not prove due to insufficient evidence that any cattle had left the property after being tagged in breach of the regulations so my plea of guilty in relation to a number less than 25 was no doubt a relief and a godsend to the DPI, given their now grandstanding activities.

Minister MacDonald (NSW Minister for Primary Industries pictured) linking my behaviour and actions with a ‘foot and mouth disease outbreak’ (click on link to see ministers statement) or any disease outbreak is scurrilous and damaging.

My herd has been closed for 50 years with the only introductions being stud sires and the occasional stud cows for genetic improvement. Indeed it is the only herd in Australia that carries a MN3 Johnes Disease status in two states – NSW and Victoria.

This accreditation is only obtained after rigorous auditing, whole herd blood testing and extensive on farm management and administrative reporting: the scheme is administered by the Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA.)

Is Minister McDonald suggesting that the actual MLA disease testing and auditing procedures are deficient? i.e. similar Commonwealth Legislation that he now seeks to enforce on a state basis.

Remember, this is a closed Angus stud and commercial operation on two properties only with stringent management and audit requirements, not just for Johnes.

Minister McDonald’s statement that “Mr Blair’s actions could have delayed tracing long enough to allow a small outbreak of a devastating disease like foot and mouth to spread throughout the country” is defamatory and damaging and appropriate remedies will be sought.

The DPI also dropped another charge of obstructing an officer, also due to a lack of evidence: no mention of this in their grandstanding press release. Erroneously and unfairly, their costs for this charge were also lumped on me by the Magistrate.

An appeal has been lodged against:
• The conviction – being my first offence in any court or jurisdiction
• The severity of the fine
• The costs order.

Consideration has also been given to an application for a re-hearing and plea due to Magistrate Leferve’s obvious bias.

A letter has been sent to the Chief Magistrate of NSW in this regard, to clarify why Leferve heard the case when he had earlier disqualified himself due to his self-admitted attitude towards me, as a result of my behaviour to the court – (not DPI!).

Indeed he mocked me publicly in January 2008 when I was unable to attend court, due to being hospitalised under a stress-related health issue.

I am also intrigued by the DPI’s selective action and prosecution. The NSW DPI’s so-called Agricultural Compliance Manager, Andrew Sanger has been contacted in relation to much more serious breaches of the regulations e.g no NVD and no NLIS on movement of cattle, and he/ the DPI/the Minister have chosen to take no action.

I am not seeking sympathy just a fair go and real justice.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Blair

Monday, June 30, 2008

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Have your say! Leave Farmer Stephen Blair your message of support or your thoughts on the issue.

South East QLD Farmer Viv Forbes writes:

As a farmer & chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition I am accusing the big farming lobby groups, government departments, politicians and Ministers representing agriculture of ignoring science and abandoning farmers to unjustified carbon taxation.

We believe there was no justification whatsoever for including emissions from farm animals in any carbon emissions tax scheme.

Every intelligent farmer can understand the carbon food cycle whereby every bit of carbon dioxide released by farm animals or plants into the atmosphere has previously been removed from the same atmosphere.

This simple process is surely not beyond the understanding of all the lobbyists, bureaucrats, researchers and media living off farmers?

In the farm sector carbon balance, apart from any fossil fuel used, it is a zero sum game, and all farm animals have ZERO NET CARBON EMISSIONS.

Grazing animals have not yet learned to live on coal or diesel fuel, and they cannot create carbon out of rocks, soil or water. Therefore they must extract it, via grasses and grains, from that marvellous gas of life in our atmosphere, carbon dioxide.

All foods and organic matter represent carbon that has been sequestered by life processes into living bodies.

Farm plants and animals are every bit as green as forests.

Both farms and forests extract carbon from the air and store it in organic life forms until that organic matter is burnt or decays in the open air, thus returning their borrowed carbon to the atmospheric storehouse.

Why then does growing forests attract a carbon credit and but growing cattle and sheep cops a carbon tax?

Australia and New Zealand lead the world in harvesting solar energy and carbon dioxide to produce an abundance of clean green food. Why then are both the New Zealand and the Australian governments proposing to force farm animals into their emissions trading quagmire?

And why are they subsidising the conversion of farmland producing food into forests producing nothing but carbon credits or crops producing ethanol motor fuel? What are future generations going to eat?

We are saying that farmers need to start agitating now or they risk being the only bunnies still paying carbon taxes.

Motorists who vote and use petrol will escape the carbon tax by sleight of hand – petrol excise will in future be called “carbon tax”.

Exporters will get an exemption to enable them to compete with more sensible regimes with no carbon taxes. Other protected species like working families in marginal electorates will get subsidies to cover carbon taxes on electricity bills.

Truckies will blockade the roads if politicians add carbon tax to diesel prices. That leaves farmers as the only big group with so few votes and such incompetent leadership that they will pay the carbon tax.

Farmers have been abandoned by Ag Force, the Meat and Livestock Authority, CSIRO, the National Party, and most of the similar organisations in New Zealand. It is not clear whether this is because of a lack of scientific logic or cowardice in the face of electoral hysteria on global warming.

But the politicians representing the treasured “working families” in the battling suburbs had better start taking notice of rising food prices or a more soundly based hysteria about the growing shortage of food will sweep emissions trading nonsense from the political landscape.

Viv Forbes, Farmer, BScApp, FAusIMM, FSIA

Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition