THE GREENS THE HERALD AND FLUFFED STATISTICS

There was a time when the mainstream media would check claims and numbers – in particular, unlikely sounding statistics – before publishing them as though fact. 

Certainly the broadsheets endeavour to check details when issued by the major Parties, in hope of highlighting a politician’s statistical creativity.

Not so when it comes to the Greens. 

Increasingly, whether due to thinly veiled allegiances or bone idleness, the media appears more than happy to stipulate to the ‘facts’ as reported by Greens prosecutors, without so much as cursory scrutiny, much less something that might find them accused of professional diligence. 

As a Party that talks a lot about ethics and principle while demonstrating precious little of either, few are surprised when the Greens employ deception in pursuit of their objectives.  After all, in politics the ends justify the means and the Greens are just politicians like any others, willing to do absolutely anything, including deceive, to further their political objectives.

Take the latest release regarding Narooma’s HuntFest, issued by Greens MLC David Shoebridge.  

The Herald journalist Kirsty Needham is happy to promulgate the Greens’ claims in exactly the way she’s been bid, apparently without any concern for the truth whatsoever, much less the balance that comes of checking claims and  even fleshing statistics out a tad.

Ms Needham reports that “Last year, the Greens' photography competition was run head to head with a photography exhibition at Huntfest that celebrated shooting and carcasses.”  She does not report that last year, the Greens photography competition featured, yes, you guessed it, shooting and carcasses. In fact it was a category in their competition, just as it was this year.

Last year’s Animals in the Wild exhibition included the rotting corpse of a wallaby and a dead kangaroo being heaved on the back of a ute.  Apparently this stuff is only offensive at HuntFest, not at the Greens’ own poorly attended parallel sabotage event.  

Ms Needham also fails to mention the very pertinent fact that HuntFest does not display images of illegally hunted (poached) native species, nor award a prize for the best picture of same as the Greens’ competition does with its Category D: “The image that best conveys the reality of the hunting, guns and killing culture.”

HuntFest does not support the hunting of native mammals as the Greens' competition category cunningly implies. Hunting native mammals is illegal, save for exceptional and highly regulated circumstances such as professional kangaroo meat harvesters and farmers who cull for land management purposes. 

But let’s move along. We’ve a lot to cover...

Ms Needham, along with the Greens and their arms-length urban guerrilla group Stop Arms Fairs Eurobodalla (SAFE), are happy to milk the dramatic cow by bandying about the term “arms fair”.  Now I could be wrong, but I’ll hazard the guess that if you were to call Ms Needham with the scoop that an international drug cartel had been broken on the strength of your neighbour finding an ecstasy tablet in her 16yld daughter’s washing, your story wouldn’t get much of a run. 

Yet here we have the Herald reporting that HuntFest is an “arms fair”, not once, not twice but a total of 6 times in the one article. 

How does Ms Needham (the Greens and others) justify such an extravagant description of what is, in reality, a rural outdoors and hunting expo? Well...

Due to the NSW Firearms Registry’s unfortunate application of grandiose terminology over which HuntFest has zero control, the licence required to temporarily exhibit arms in a venue other than a shop, is known as an “Arms Fair Permit”.
Of course to a Greens politician wandering the political wilderness, this unfortunate designation is emotive manna from heaven.  

The fully enclosed and supervised mobile SSAA air-rifle range

The permit is required even if the ‘arms’ on display number a grand total of 1 'arm' and even if said arm is an air-rifle such as many will be familiar with seeing at carnivals and agricultural shows, which oddly seem to evade the arms fair designation.

Never-mind, I’m sure the Herald will look after that... 

• Loads of fun for the whole family at the Royal Easter ARMS FAIR!

• Roll-up! Roll-up! To the summer seaside ARMS FAIR! Ride the dodgems. Try your hand at the RIFLE RANGE and maybe win a plush toy for your girl, all at the ARMS FAIR!!

• Oh sure, it’s all shits and giggles until someone’s head is blown clean off at Luna ARMS FAIR Park!

An Arms Fair Permit is not required to sell guns in a shop, such as the sports stores found in the shires surrounding the Eurobodalla, all of which carry the same guns and ammunition etc one may find at HuntFest. 

These establishments are left completely unmolested by the media, SAFE and the Greens simply because the headline, “Community outrage as guns sold in rural sports store” lacks a certain je ne sais quoi. 

Of course one must take into account the journalists’ obligation to beat-up a story that no one would otherwise read. This is the key to successful (as opposed to good) journalism. 

The headline “Outdoors expo includes hunting equipment” is hardly the grab-line that “Narooma Huntfest protesters oppose arms fair and combat guns with cameras” is. 

But a quick Google, or even a peek at the Wiki, soon reveals what people might expect to see at a real “arms fair”.

Military weaponry, the latest in stealth aircraft and laser guided missile systems, rocket launchers, automatic weapons, body armour and armour piercing munitions, compact ICBMs, Strike Drones, perhaps some fast deployment anti-personnel fairyfloss and the latest in 3-kiloton palm buzzers and so on.

When the public thinks HuntFest, this is what the Greens, SAFE and the media want the public to visualise.

I am sorry to be the bearer of disappointing tidings, but nothing of this nature is included at HuntFest and it never will be, if only because it’s dashed tricky landing a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy at Moruya airport. 

Despite the imaginatively deceptive hype, HuntFest is permitted to display and sell only those firearms and accouterments of hunting and camping that a comprehensively equipped sports and outdoors store may be found selling on any and every day of the week. 

But let’s move on to the fictional statistics Ms Needham has helped the Greens promulgate. 

"A council survey conducted last year found 80 per cent of residents opposed an arms fair", She reports. That’s an impressive level of cohesion from a Eurobodalla community of some 37,230+ residents. It is in fact 27,384 souls worth of impressive cohesion. It is also utterly untrue!

Wouldn’t you think such a claim might warrant just a wee bit of investigation...a little simple math perhaps?

Here’s the thing. The 80% support the Greens and minions claim they have for their efforts to scuttle HuntFest, actually relates to the percentage of people who responded to a Council community consultation relating to the broadening of HuntFest’s event licence. 

The exact number of submissions from residents of the Eurobodalla opposed to HuntFest remains a little sketchy, but it is believed to have been in the order of 240 in total. 

80% of 240 is, drum roll... brass flourish ...192. Hardly a groundswell of grassroots support for the anti-HuntFest putsch. More an indication of the niggling opposition of a bunch of vexatious petitioners I’d have thought, especially given the grounds upon which HuntFest's opponents solicited support were as politically contrived, deceptive and unbalanced as the Herald's reporting of the consultation's outcome.

It should be said that around 260 pro-HuntFest submissions were also received, which the Greens and SAFE insisted should be discounted if every one of them was not from Eurobodalla residents and this brings me to a glowing example of Greens/SAFE hypocrisy of truly supernova proportions.  

Shortly after demanding that all pro-HuntFest submissions be rejected if not representative of local opinion, SAFE presented Eurobodalla Greens Councillor Gabi Harding with the results of an online anti-HuntFest petition boasting 40,000 signatures, which Cr. Harding accepted on Council’s behalf. 

Not 40,000 local signatures mind, oh no. Signatures from people all over the world, from regions as remote as Uzbekistan, Venezuela and the wilds of Patagonia. These opponents of HuntFest, the Greens and SAFE argued, must be considered because they represent people all over the world who may never visit Narooma....because of HuntFest. 

Really?  

To be fair, it is also claimed that 6,000 of the 40,000 signatures were contributed by Aussies, and that an infinitesimally small percentage of that 6,000 (1%) may have even heard of Narooma...probably thanks to HuntFest.

This is the calibre of the people the Australian media is going out on a limb to support. This is the stature of the Greens’ integrity and maturity. This is pathetic! 

But wait, as they say, for there's more...

The Greens/SAFE then proudly produced yet another, very similar, altogether different, totally predictable and much more biggerer, yet simultaneously (and at the same time) considerably smallerer petition to the NSW Legislative Assembly.

This petition boasted 900 signatures and while not all of them could be attributed to Eurobodalla residents, as the Greens/SAFE dictated all petition signatories and letters of support should be, it must surely force Government to cancel HuntFest’s event licence, right?

They were sore miffed to discover that’s not quite the way it works.

And the petition had such a lovely cover too.

You see, gentle reader, even if all 900 signatures had been traceable to Eurobodalla residents/ratepayers, which they could not be, 900 of 37,234 is not 80% opposition, but just 2.4%. 

You think that's not relevant, Ms Needham, really? 

Am I building a picture here, perhaps one Ms Needham and sundry colleagues should have attempted to put together before swallowing the Greens’ bait, hook, line and sinker and portraying Narooma to the Australian community as a hotbed of division?

Exactly what does the media, or for that matter the NSW Greens, get out of leading the populations of our major cities to believe that if they travel to Narooma to visit HuntFest they are likely to be greeted by 29,787 angry locals all chanting “We hate HuntFest, visitors go home!”

And what of the Shire Councillor whose devotion to her Party’s extremist hoplophobic ideology nourishes these strategic falsehoods, ensuring they'll grow and flourish abroad?

Harding to demand independent inquiry

What impact have these deceptions had on HuntFest’s growth and development, given that it must be agreed that it is specifically HuntFest’s growth and development they’re contrived to sabotage?

How much economic benefit could HuntFest bring to the community during the quietest long-weekend of the year, if permitted to develop without deception and media misrepresentation shoved in the faces of millions who know no more about the event than the falsehoods the press irresponsibly promulgates? 

The Greens and SAFE have made it abundantly clear in their various statements that they believe HuntFest brings the wrong type of people to the Eurobodalla. If they win this battle on the strength of a free ride from a national political entity and the Australian media, what might this south coast equivalent of the Harper Valley PTA oppose in the future? 

You know, it never ceases to amaze me how city folks will scurry away from the rat-race for the peace and sense of community cohesion one associates with rural living, only to spend the rest of their lives telling the people who built those communities they’ve got it all wrong! 

Anyway, I’ll get outaya way now...

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