Bashing sheep while ACT Party protect violent shearers

Animal rights advocates call for camera surveillance in shearing sheds

Animal rights advocates are calling for cameras in shearing sheds, saying “welfare training” for shearers is not enough to stop sheep being mistreated.

The Government and the industry have this week announced a joint $75,000 fund to support this training.

It is in response to a damning exposé last year by PETA, which released covert footage of sheep being punched and kicked, and triggered an ongoing investigation by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI).

However, the SPCA’s chief scientific officer, Dr Arnja Dale, said she would be “really disappointed” if this were the only outcome.

“It’s been more than a year since that exposé. More training is absolutely needed, it’s a good start, but these are not new issues.”

The PETA investigation had attracted international attention and obviously embarrassed the government and the wool industry, she said.

“But if they really cared about animal welfare, they would have addressed these issues with shearing years ago.”

I grew up on a farm.

There was a home kill shed across from my bedroom at the back, off the house.

I’m well aware of the realities of animal husbandry in NZ and have done my fair share of wool sweeping duties as a kid when everyone pitched in to help.

In my childhood experience, all the Shearers I met took care of the sheep they sheared as a basic tenant of faith that they were a good bugger who wouldn’t intentionally harm a sentient animal.

I remember once a sheep getting nicked during a shearing because it was bucking around and the focus was on the welfare of the unfortunately cut sheep, not giving it the bash!

That’s my experience, however the footage that has been released of Shearer’s beating the shit out of sheep is right there in front of our eyes and is unmistakably terrible violence against an animal.

I think beating up animals is akin to beating up children who can’t speak yet.

I think the academic research highlights that if you are physically abusing animals, you sure as fuck way more likely to be physically abusing human beings as well.

Now my cherished memories of the kind of blokes who were Shearers back in my day when I was wool sweeping collides with what I am witnessing in this terrible footage.

You can not pretend that there is an obvious problem here, beating animals with the level of intensity that has been captured speaks ill of us on many deep levels.

Then a pig of a man oinks into view…

However, both the Government and the shearing industry have rejected video surveillance as “unnecessary and intrusive”.

Associate Agriculture Minister Andrew Hoggard said New Zealand did not “spy” on its own citizens.

…ok, could of things about the man pig here.

1. NZ absolutely does do mass surveillance and they are about to spy on every single driver with new tracking devices, so let’s not play the sausage eh love?
2. We have cameras on fishing boats (although Shane Jones is doing everything to remove them).
3. Pigman speaks for those abusing the animals, he doesn’t care about the abused animals , and that was most obviously seen in his deplorable stance on allowing Pig Farmers another decade before they have to do anything about Sow Crates.

Look.

Good shearers are great, I know this because I have been lucky enough to be around some, but that footage shows men taking naked violence out on sheep in a way that is obviously cruel and utterly illegal!

Rather than protect the abusers, why not protect that which is being abused?

Of all the cavalcade of political circus freaks we ace from ACT, NZF and National, Andrew the Hogg Hoggard seems the most cartoonishly loathsome.

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