basin bullet

As I See It

Welcome to this third edition of the Basin Bullet.

The many emails in support of the ezine have been both heart-warming and welcome. But where are the emails taking us to task over some of our articles that perhaps push the boundary of accepted thought?

As the editions roll out over the cyber highways, feedback tells us that the publication is being monitored by politicians and industry groups. This means letters to the Bullet will be read in the halls of government – well on computers at any rate. So say your thing, about anything within or concerning the Desert Channels Region.

There have been some problems with delivery of the magazine. DCQ staff are attempting to overcome this by using an automated subscription transmission list. If you are interested in reading further issues of the Bullet and you are not on the prime distribution list (direct from DCQ) please take the effort to subscribe via email (see inside this issue).

The feature story this month is on mulesing, the husbandry process used by Australian sheep producers that has come under global scrutiny over the past year. The idea to write the story was easy – a subject that will create debate. Writing the story was a different matter. This is a hugely emotive issue with all sides extremely sensitive to their own points of view. As my background is with cattle (in a life before journalism) I had never seen lambs being mulesed, which in a way, actually made that observational part of developing the story a little easier.

As I dug deeper, it became obvious that the damage done to our wool industry was not caused by animal rights people, it was caused by political ineptitude within the Australian wool industry. We’ve been told the animal rights people gave wool industry leaders 12 months notice of their intention to start a campaign. Industry leaders did not at any stage share this information with the industry at large. And the animal rights people asked for nothing more than what was already being planned within the industry.

A little negotiation two years ago and an explanation of what was already happening here could have stopped the boycott before it began. This political hard-headedness has cost the Australian wool industry dearly.

Bruce Honeywill

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