Desert Knowledge CRC camel cull 'next pink batts debacle'

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Taxpayers are getting humped with cost of an ineffectual camel cull.
This is how Senator Sean Edwards (Liberal, SA) describes the Feral Camel Management Project run by Ninti One, a not-for-profit company that grew out of the former Desert Knowledge CRC based in Alice Springs. It now manages the CRC for Remote Economic Participation.
Says Sen Edwards: “It’s another pink batts debacle in the making.”
The Senator, who is a member of the Rural, Regional Affairs and Transport Committee, was commenting on the answers he received to questions on notice that he had put last month as to the project’s lack of progress.
“The official response today from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forests is a demonstration of what is wrong with the Gillard / Greens alliance in administering any program,” Senator Edwards says.
“By the end of next financial year, $19 million will have been spent on the Project and of the targeted 350,000 feral camels, a mere 36,000 were exterminated in the first two years.
“The cost per head of shooting the camels from helicopter had blown out, with the latest provided estimated being about $212 per head, plus direct operation costs, whatever they might be.
“This is not counting the $6m of State and Territory Government funds to date as well. That puts the cost per head to over $400 a head.
“Surely it time for the authorities to rethink what they are doing, acknowledge that it is not working and try something else – such as capturing the more accessible camels and transporting them to abattoirs.
“This alternative would provide jobs for local communities including aboriginals, but no – the government doesn’t want to alter its program.
“It’s not interested in widening the ambit of its Caring for Our Country program so there won’t be any centrally-based camel abattoir let alone freight subsidy – and so, no worthwhile job training for locals where it is hard to find work” says Sen Edwards.
“The combination of the dead hand of the bureaucracy and weak Ministers not acting outside artificial environmental parameters are yet more proof that a dynamic change is needed from the top down.
“At the very least, an immediate crisis meeting is essential before the remaining $8.4 million in Project funds has been gone through with little of consequence to show for it – apart from well-paid aerial contractors / chopper pilots waiting for the next Government thought bubble moving forward.”

8 COMMENTS

  1. When will politicians gain common sense to achieve simple solutions and encourage local growth?

  2. I find the slaughter of camels not only repulsive by the lack of planning but those who came up with this program guilty of animal cruelty. With pig shooting the shooters use freezer trucks and slaughter and take product back for processing. And included in the payment from government the same process could have been included in this program. The RSPCA finds docking tails of certain breeds of dogs as animal cruelty but this horror is approved. It appears that animal liberationists put in time and effort for some but not all. I agree that when culling is needed it has left it too late. Constant monitoring should be on top of the list not wait until it is out of control and react badly. Shame on those who find this acceptable. People on poor diets in communities and food is left to rot everywhere.

  3. Shame on Australian Government in the year 2012 to do such barbaric acts of killing these animals when there are so many people in need of these animals and many others willing to tame them. Better still why not be innovative enough to see what best can be done with them. Ask for for help with ideas. Argh disgusting. I am from Gabra community in East Africa, Kenya.

  4. Can this senator use the same money to kill these camels use to transport to people who need them. Do we belong to the same mother earth, one God or similar shape same color of blood? How can they kill what is so valuable for people’s subsistence in another part of the world?

  5. Such a waste of tax payers’ money once again. They must be able to see the ramifications of this blowout of public money and still they continue to fund this program even thought it is plainly obvious it is not working. Shame Shame Shame on you!

  6. Incompetence seems the norm these days. Throw money at a problem, have a glossy website, and somehow the masses are supposed to be brainwashed into how well the camel problem seems to be controlled.
    As an Australian I am embarrassed as to how ineffectual our government handles situations.
    The wasted 19 million dollars could have been better spent in so many ways.
    Bureaucrats in Canberra sitting behind their desks should go out to these places and talk to the local experts and follow their advice.
    I am appalled at the Japanese whale “scientific research” in our southern ocean, but it pales into insignificance as at least they consume the animals they slaughter, not leave them to rot.
    Ziv Golubovic (apologising for Australia’s incompetence)

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