S.A.F.E’S EACH-WAY BET ON COMMUNITY CONSULTATION

Having failed utterly in their bid to have the NSW Police Minister veto HuntFest’s event licence on the strength of a 900-signature petition, S.A.F.E is now crying about everyone’s failure to see reason...save their own of course.

See "Opposition Ignored", letters to the Editor, Bega District News (and doubtless elsewhere) January 16th, 2015.
The haters are off to a whining start in 2015!  

For those unfamiliar with S.A.F.E, it's a political *ginger group planted and nourished by the Greens. It's objective, which its members prosecute with Jihadist zeal, is to shut-down a south coast NSW hunting and outdoors expo on the grounds that, if not stopped immediately, it will increase the rate of domestic violence, cause widespread carnage among native wildlife populations, corrupt rural youth, peel the paint from the walls of the community centre in which it is held, increase carbon emissions, raise sea-levels, attract rogue comets  and quite probably precipitate a level of curtain fading hitherto unprecedented in the small seaside township of Narooma.

Perhaps the saddest thing about the entire HuntFest saga lies in the fact that the manifold deceptions perpetrated by Ms Cruttenden and her co-conspirators from S.A.F.E seem likely to continue.

To suggest it was wrong for Council to consider 'submissions' (emails of support mainly) from stakeholders outside the Eurobodalla's immediate ratepayer-base, demonstrates a level of hypocrisy of truly phenomenal proportions.

Was it not S.A.F.E that delivered the infamous Intergalactic Petition to Council, demanding that it should determine the outcome of deliberations about amendments to HuntFest's event licence, on the basis that it contained 40,000 signatures (the overwhelming majority of which belonged to non-residents of Australia) of potential international tourists who would never visit Narooma because of HuntFest?

If Council should be swayed by the statements of people who will not visit Narooma, ostensibly because of HuntFest, why is it wrong to consider the input of people who will visit because of HuntFest?

They're now whining because the Minister rejected their latest 900 signature petition. 900 signatures from a population in excess of 30,000 is a miserable effort in anyone's estimation. It would no-doubt be possible to find even more people in the Eurobodalla willing to sign a petition against building a Mosque in Narooma, gay marriage or asylum-seeker residency in the shire. I suspect you could round up thousands to sign a "Send all the Muslims home" petition right about now.

So you told the Minister 900 haters live in the district? I doubt somehow that was a surprise.

The single most relevant fact in the whole question of how much support S.A.F.E and the GREENS have amongst local people as they strive to sabotage the initiative of a small local community not-for-profit, which aims to bring people and money to the region in the off-season, is this:

Not a single protester has ever attended HuntFest. Not one, ever!

Police have pulled resources from the rest of the region based on claims of widespread community opposition and anger, potentially disadvantaging other communities and perhaps leaving our roads insufficiently protected from drink drivers and the like during the June long weekend, all because S.A.F.E and the Greens have claimed more than two-thirds of the population is outraged and opposed to the event, thus intimating hordes of angry protesters should be expected.

But not a single placard or march-past, nor even so much as a mildly miffed seagull spitting curses and making obscene wing gestures for the promise of free chips has ever protested HuntFest. Even calls for the public to paper nearby fences with anti-HuntFest messages have resulted in a grand total of zip support.

As for the latest petition, I can hazard a guess as to why it was possible to harvest 900 signatures. It's the same reason folks say yes to those people who go door-to-door selling cheap electricity, even signing contracts when asked, only to cancel the whole thing by phone during the cooling-off period.

It's because some folks don't like to say no when confronted by a zealot with a strange glint in his eye and cause to flog!

And thank the gods S.A.F.E has not been successful, for given a 'win' people such as they are seldom satisfied. 

That cruel sport of game fishing would have been next I suspect, followed no-doubt by whale watching for its potential to disturb fragile migratory paths.

Groups of haters do not simply dissolve when they accomplish their mission. Power over one's community is a drug far too seductive to allow that.

Anyway, I'll get outaya way now...

Author's note: The term *ginger-group is commonly used to describe a small unit of political activists who have a very narrow brief or focus. The term denotes great energy or liveliness and it's etymology is quite fascinating. 

It is derived from the all but forgotten practice of 'feaguing', wherein a horse-trader would insert a piece of freshly peeled ginger, or sometimes it is said, a live eel, into a horse's fundament before showing it to a potential buyer, to make the horse prance in a lively manner and hold its tail erect.

Would me!

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