I just received an email form MLA (Meat & Livestock Australia) requesting that I remove an article from the site. What it demonstrates is how powerful forces dictate what ordinary Australians read and see in the media.
The email is polite and no doubt in the MLA’s mind well meaning. However I won’t be removing the pictures unless of course an overwhelming number of our readers ask me too. You see unlike the mainstream media, MLA does not pay us 100,000’s of thousands of dollars for advertising each year.
As a result we are totally independent and publish what we think is appropriate. Yes the accident was terrible. Terrible for the driver, terrible for the Truck owner, terrible for the farmers who lost all of their cattle and terrible for the cattle.
But thats life in the bush. No body in the bush feels anything but sympathy for all those involved including the cattle.
If it had been a bus load of people instead of cattle would anybody have been asking me to “pull the photo’s”. No the media all over the world would be wanting to buy them to splash across their headlines.
Unfortunately no matter how organizations try and cover it up, its a tough and at times dangerous life living in the bush. It’s not anything like life in the city - so we should not pretend it is.
Let me know what you think? If the majority of you the readers think the article should be pulled - “I’ll pull it”. Its up to you.
.
Got a tip off, article or have you seen a video or item you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com
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Tags: MLA, Truck Crash Photos
The Country Life , I wish we would stop getting it as it is bad - they push all the globalist free trade, carbon trading and GM dogma - I suppose what would I expect from a Murdoch paper - I guess it is useful for reading wedding funerals and selling and buying things.
G’day Von,
Thanks for that - I’d hope that the next time you decide to “Buy and Sell” things that you think of Agmates first. We have built a whole side to the site that is there for farmers to buy and sell at a fraction of the cost of the “Country Life”. You can sell by classified or by running your own auction. Heaps of photos and readers not only right across QLD but the whole of Australia.
If you really value the independence of Agmates you might like to support us instead of the Billion dollar Rural Press empire that controls what rural people see and hear.
After all you pay $3.20 for the privilege of buying the country life. Where as Agmates Rural News is 7 days a week and FREE.
The trouble is my husband and mother-in-law don’t use the computer. My husband would like to stop paying for Country Life. I will definitely sit him down and look at the Buy and Sell though.
Thanks Von,
The long term viability of the Agmates business is reliant on farmers taking advantage of the classified and auction part of the site.
It really works well, had some Agmates put a mob of 50 heifers on the classifieds the other day and they sold within 5 days of listing.
Earlier on had another Agmate from up near Alpha put cows and calves on and they sold to another farmer in Forbes in NSW.
Thanks for your support.
The fact that the MLA wants these pictures removed just shows how removed from the real farm gate they are.
It is a real world out here and unfortunately these accidents do occur.
I would have to agree with MLA.
We all know the realities of farming, but many city people dont, and while they don’t, they give us less problems.
Hi Steve,
I’d thought I’d make a comment……seeing I was the one who sent you the photos in the first place.
I actually did put some thought into whether to edit and remove some of the photos prior to sending them on but decided against it.
These are the reasons:
1. Internet users see far more graphic images everyday on the news and via their computers….its not like animal death and dying is a new thing.
2. It puts a face to poor truck driver and his family and the owner of the cattle, and while you sit at your computer and see the photos, you DO actually spare a thought for those people involved….and if you are like me….wish them luck and hope they can get through it.
3. We actually know and use the company that was involved, to cart our cattle and they are the epitome of what good carriers should be…that is punctual, competitive, good handlers of our livestock and are a good family company that is doing its best for us and themselves when they cart our cattle.
4. The downside of the photos is that they can easily be misconstrued by do-gooders and so-called animal welfare turkeys who want to cause trouble…..and use them as propaganda for their own twisted importance. When you take the amount of kilometres travelled by truck drivers and compare it the average kilomteres driven by your average urban drivers and compare the statistical evidence, then it is not hard to work out who are the more unsafe drivers!!!!
I would hitch a ride with a truckie anytime compared to getting in a car with an urban driver whos only driving experience is to the shops to get milk or to along a freeway at snails pace in peak hour.
5. As for MLA, I hope my levies are going towards greater things than picking the eyes out of Agmates website photos. Some greater share in the EU market and some new live export trade would be more up the MLA’s alley I would have thought.
If they are worried about animal welfare issues, they are about 10 years to late, they should have been heading those issues off at the pass, way back….I actually attended a Beef Plan forum in Toowoomba about 10 years ago where those exact issues were raised by producers.
Unless I’m mistaken, the combined media unit (with Agforce,and other producer groups)that was spruiked about back then has never eventuated to my knowledge. My guess is that the animal welfare fanatics have a bank of photos far worse than the ones on the Agmates site….I wonder if the MLA has a bank of excellent photos to pre-empt and outwit animal welfare groups? My guess….not likely.
Keep up the good work Steve.
Natalie Williams (no pseudonym used!!!)