Over 170 years the cattlemen of the Snowy have cared for the high country nurturing gods garden without government intervention.




Government and Greenies have achieved this in such a short time of controlled management in the name of saving the Snowy from the Cattlemen and the public.

Now Mr Bracks, since you are taking back the high country in your state can we expect the same care and concern from your flunkies and urban Greenies and National Parks who demonstarted their ability this month with controlled burning in Victoria... Hmmmmmmmm ..

Bush Users Group (Victoria)
PO Box 796
Castlemaine Vic 3450

26th May, 2005
=================================
Media Statement from Bob Richardson,
President of the Bush Users Group
=================================

Taxpayer Subsidised Green Campaign Defeats Mountain Cattlemen

‘Victoria’s peak public land access organisation, the Bush Users Group, condemns the Bracks’ Government’s decision to exclude grazing from the Alpine National Park.

While the Government may have gone through the charade of an inquiry process into alpine grazing, the result was a foregone conclusion. In reality the decision to ban grazing was based on a very professional, tax-payer subsidised campaign by the Victorian National Parks Association. The VNPA, and other green groups who lobbied for the exclusion of grazing, enjoy tax-deductible status for donations towards their work - including the VNPA’s Alpine Campaign.

The VNPA and the other green groups in their Carlton offices are very distant from the realities of life in the high country. The Mountain Cattlemen’s Association is one of many organisations that, while protecting their member’s interests, are also protecting Australia’s heritage. Few of these organisations enjoy any government support, the reality is that most rely on volunteer labour and a shoestring budget to defend their members’ activities.

The green groups have used their tax-deductibility status to fund campaigns to deny access for many traditional activities across Victoria in areas such as the Otway Ranges, the Goldfields and Port Philip Bay. They have won each and every one of their campaigns. While the taxation status inequity continues there will never be a fair and balanced result.

The current key campaign for the VNPA is the River Red Gum. They are seeking a new national park along much of the Murray River. In response the Bracks’ Government is going through another process to, supposedly impartially, investigate public land use in the region. When (not if) the national park is created from this process many traditional activities will be excluded. Those opposed to such a park will be battling uphill while the VNPA, and their ilk, enjoy tax-deductibility status.

I doubt that the average taxpayer would approve of their taxes being used to destroy Australia’s heritage.’

Further information from: Bob Richardson 0402 658 012

Title: Alpine National Park: cattle grazing
House: COUNCIL
Activity: Members Statements
Members: STONEY
Date: 25th May 2005
==========================================================

Alpine National Park: cattle grazing
Hon. E. G. STONEY (Central Highlands) -- The removal of the mountain cattlemen from the Alpine National Park will destroy an important part of Victoria's culture and history.
Page 2

I have been involved in the cattlemen's fight for survival since I was 20, and that fight led me to be elected to this place.

The announcement of the total removal of the cattle from the park breaks a legislated promise to have seven-year renewable licences. The promise was made by the Cain government in order that agreement could be reached to create the massive Alpine National Park, and that happened in 1989. Part of the agreement was that cattle were to be taken off the higher exposed peaks on the north Bogongs and the Bluff. The cattlemen sacrificed vast tracts of grazing land, with 10 families losing everything, which meant 90 per cent of the new park was closed to grazing back then.

The Bracks government has broken the agreement; it has now taken the remaining 10 per cent of the land for cheap political gain.

I believe the Bracks government has been shifty in the way it went about destroying the cattlemen. The government says the cattlemen can move to adjoining forest areas -- this is complete rubbish! The government has miscalculated the deep support for the cattlemen in the general community, and it has miscalculated the latent anger about poor public land management. People are going to hate the advertising campaign which is taking money away from proper land management measures, for example, to control blackberries and feral animals.

Destroying the cattlemen may be the catalyst to eventually bringing down the Bracks government. There are thousands of people in this state who say this cannot come soon enough.

From: RitaBentley
To: undisclosed-recipients
Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2005 10:54 AM
Subject: Fw: News from The Nationals: Premier questioned over cultural heritage
$250,000 is going to be spent convincing you that banning cattle grazing from the high country is a good idea!
Wouldn't the money be better spent on a few hospital beds?
R

-------Original Message-------

From: Helen.Ransom@opposition.vic.gov.au
Date: Wednesday, 25 May 2005 04:32:34 PM
Subject: News from The Nationals: Premier questioned over cultural heritage

Wednesday, 25 May 2005

PREMIER QUESTIONED OVER CULTURAL HERITAGE


The Nationals have challenged the Bracks Government to give more respect to
the living cultural heritage of mountain cattlemen and their families.

In Question Time today, Leader of The Nationals Peter Ryan referred to the
long list of grants and initiatives provided by the government for
Aboriginal and ethnic groups to preserve and protect their cultural
heritage.

"I then asked the Premier to extend that same assistance to graziers in the
Alpine National Park and help protect what is probably Australia's greatest
living cultural heritage," Mr Ryan said.

"The Premier's answer just served to underline my point that this decision
is philosophically driven and has nothing to do with science.

"This government is trashing 170 years of cultural heritage and tradition
in a desperate bit to secure green preferences in suburban Melbourne.

"Mr Bracks has earned his place in history as the Premier who killed the
Man from Snowy River and shattered the lives of country families in the
process."

Mr Ryan has also criticised the government for funding a $250,000
advertising campaign to discredit the mountain cattlemen.

"The government commissioned an advertising agency to do a hatchet job on
the cattlemen, before they even had the decency to tell the regional
communities about the ban on grazing," Mr Ryan said.

"The insults to country Victoria just keep on coming from this city-centric
government.

"Not only is the Bracks Government throwing away 170 years of cultural
heritage, it is wasting $250,000 to trash the reputation of the cattlemen."

Media contact: Darren Chester (03) 9651 8536 or 0418 390 229
www.vic.nationals.org.au

RIDERS, BUGS AND MEDIA , We need your help to save the significant cultural
image of the high country. The Man from Snowy River , that international
image presented at the opening of the Olympic Games in Sydney 2000 is at
risk of being wiped out by a bunch of political extremists who wouldn't know
what it meant to sit on a horse on top of a mountain feel proud to be part
of a great Australian icon.
Please help us to keep our heritage, our children and Grandchildren will
never forgive us if we let these traditions die......
YOUR ACTION....Contact Peter Mc Gauran and offer support (write a letter to
theEd) .
Ian Campbell and offer support
Contact Bracks office and give him a piece of
your mind !
Best wishes.... Peter Cochran.....(former NSW State Member for Monaro and
former Mayor of Cooma.)
02 64542336

Steve Bracks ,

you have gutted thousands of Australians by your greedy gut wrenching grab at everything good by taking away a wonderful bit of our heritage to appease your green buddies.

I hope that one day your own kids will say, why daddy did you let this happen?we have no heritage left in this country and in particularly in Victoria.
Why daddy did you do it???????

Thanks a bunch Steve
Win Morgan
Beechworth

Vale you good and faithful friend ,you Man from Snowy River

Deceit and lies have slain you , after your long and prestigious reign.

Win.Morgan
BEECHWORTH 57282779

Steve Bracks’ Australian Latte Party is very predictable. Now they are evicting the cattlemen from the High Country. They are burying The Man From Snowy River.

The amount of preparation of false advertising the Victorian Government has done, shows that the decision was taken a long time ago and was probably part of a deal for green preferences before the last election.

There is plainly no practical science in the decision; satellite photos taken after the 2003 fires show that areas subject to alpine grazing burned (if at all) much less intensly than areas subject to the neglect which passes for protection of the environment.

The decision is a vicious attack on Australian culture and heritage. It’s good enough to feature the cattlemen at the Olympic ceremonies but not politically correct to allow them to practice their traditions and preserve our heritage. The sort of men and women who built Australia are not respected by Labor politicians.

We of the Bush Users Group know that cattlemen and others will not long be allowed in the few remaining state forests. Those forests will be earmarked for trade-off at some future election. The redgum regions are the next candidate for lock it up and leave it action.

Those of us who love and respect our heritage and want to see our culture practiced, will have to do what Tasmanian voters did to Mark Latham.

Bob Richardson
President, Bush Users Group
Victoria

Souther Cross

The mind boggles when I read an article on June 1st 2003 by Shelley Hodgson of the Melbourne Sunday Heraldsun just after the Snowy/ACT fire disaster where she writes That the FireKing truck manufactured in Bendigo by ADI Limited that claims unparalleled crew safety and four wheel drive cross country mobility with 3000 litre main water tank and 700 litre reserve tank for vehicle protection plus self inflating tyres operated from inside the cabin and a road speed of 100km/h. Costing $500,000 the South Australia Forestry agreed to purchase 15 units which can also withstand temperatures up to 1000C Considering that 5 firefighters lost their lives in a CFA truck that was constructed with portions containing inflammable fiberglass when a vehicle from the same fleet was tested in August 2003. So what do you think Police and Emergency Services Minister of the Bracks government Andre Haermeyer comments on this revolutionary firefighting vehicle was?"He is concerned that the FireKing could make firefighters believe they were invincible and put themselves in dangerous situations and rejected the proposal for the CFA to purchase them". Who in the hell voted for this plonker. It confirms that you need nothing but votes to be in parliament then make decisions on the running of this country and that stupidity is not hereditary it is something you acquire yourself.

Mine Fuhrer Bracks of the Victorian fouth Reich has with his unchecked dictatorship ignored objections from farmers and small business at his employment law to prohibit children from helping out on the family farm or business.A child under 13 will not be allowed to help out - either paid or unpaid - on any other farm than their parents property. A child over 13 will need a permit ...yes a PERMIT ..even to volunteer chores - like mustering or feeding stock. The farm owners will need a police check before permits are issued.Farms owned by grandparents, aunts, uncles or siblings must obtain a permit before their young relatives can help out or it into the stalag..So if you voted labor in Victoria last time keep taking the pills until next time.

Environmental issues coupled with common sense does concern all Australians, it is the eradication of the latter that the green movement adopted that is of great concern the issue. So what happened?Formation of the Greens political party manifested radical academics along with pamphlet professors, where the majority are urban dwellers with no experience or skills pertain to their contrived cause of our salvation and deriving their projected facts from hearsay and a plethora of available fiction to convince the unsuspecting of their validity along with the sheep that join.
Election preferences allow Greenie blackmail the ghost vote within the party bunkers housing power hungry pollies battling for nest feathering survival. Recognise the ploy? Correct ! the communist parties perfected it to get their policies accepted by the masses - "or else".
To look at the positive results achieved from Greenie pup petering of pollies to the detriment of Australia is vast and publishing will take a few more weeks of research
So remain politically controlled, enjoy your stifled freedom of speech, keep dancing to the Green piper and above all don't do anything to change your life in the lucky country that may return democracy removed by stealth

The Victorian labor party fourth Reich Fuhrer Bracks, along with his jackbooted SS (Sad & Sorry) flunkies of the backbench followed in the footsteps of a previous Fuhrer from Austria to implement their will on the people.
The fourth Reich decision was derived from the collective brain power of the backbench SS who have or individual expertise, knowledge or experience of the issues under consideration. They refused to refer the matter to a bipartisan Joint Parliamentary Investigatory Committee, which would have had some chance of looking at the issues objectively.
Alpine grazing only involves 10 per cent of the Alpine National Park and the park exists as a consequence of the long term management which the successive generations of mountain cattlemen have cared for sustaining that environment, not Nation Parks and Wild Life Services who have managed to desecrate the other side of the Snowy to a burnt out disgrace by ignoring proven track records over 170 years implemented by the Men From Snowy River.
Tell us what you think by commenting.

Although it is patently obvious to the intelligent plebs such as us and the many of you who have the same concerns as your brother and sister Australians, SOS feels the need to qualify our actions.
SOS has received a message from a very irate person of the radical green ilk emphatically stating that we are nothing but a red-necked anti-green internet spreadsheet.

Therefore we put the following out as the mission statement for Save Our Snowy.

SOS came about in the first instance because numerous people kept regaling stories of mismanagement and ineptitude from our bureaucracy. As I [The Editor] have had a lifetime of many adventures, brought up in the country, served this Nation proudly and hold many years of investigative experience and am proficient in I.T. and hold a heart full of patriotism for my Country, I came to realise that these people were asking for my help.

The stories of despair related not so much to the problems that people in the Alps were suffering, but to the causes that brought the problems about, the people that were in control, the political indifference to alpine voices in contrast to the hearing and consideration politicians were giving to self serving green groups, the total and blatant disregard of 200 years of hands on experience for feel good untested science. In all, it was the battles that the Alpine people confronted.

It was obvious that the most important apparent concern was the lack of constructive media attention, the agenda driven reporting, and the political spin given to serious issues. The Alpine people and land holders across this nation are ignored. The politics of this Nation have ceased to work for the people of Australia as a collective, but rather play to noisy agenda driven groups and/or provide a platform for individual politicians and parties to strut themselves on the international stage. All this at the expense of the very fabric of our great Country.

The little people do not get heard any more. Individual's lives are of no concern to politicians. Vote gathering is the paramount driving force in all politicians eyes no matter what party they emanate from and it is this culture that has grown out of control with the help of the Corporate driven media that needs checking. Politicians across the board have failed to respect that their obligation to work for the Country with total disregard for their political position, other than to do what is right for Australia, or their State, is not optional. Until they display these qualities, respect for them will not be forthcoming. City folk are treated daily to the politician's only acting on problems that are their positional obligations after the media, radio personalities publicly berate them. Not only is this a disgusting state of political affairs, but has a demoralising action on all the others in the same quandary, but will never be heard or attended to.

Politically biased, maybe, but as we have had a labour government in NSW for so long now that all present day legislation can only be attributed to this Labour Government and Victoria, well that is just a basket case in its own right. It is only by such political history that our actions appear biased, it is definitely not intentional and many preceding governments have issues to answer for. We can't go back and change what they did, but we can certainly stay here and change what they caused and we can move forward and rectify where they went wrong, but not in the present climate.

Anti Green? Definitely not. Anti_radical-green? Absolutely.

Anti main stream media? No. Anti Editorial control over the content many fine journalists suffer daily? Absolutely

Anti Science? Absolutely not. Anti science as the be all to end all? Absolutely.

Pro proven historical hands on experience without quasi scientific substantiation? Absolutely.

Pro giving every Australian the right to be heard publicly without having to have any kind of doctorate before or after their name? Unequivocally.

Anti denigration of a person's views because of a lack of academic achievement? Unequivocally.

Concerned about the dictatorial control in ever increasing daily terms on all facets of our individual rights to enjoy our Australian way of life? Beyond expression.

SOS understands that for every action there is an opposite reaction, but the need for balance has been lost and the scales are destroying that which made Australia great. The rot for this Country started with the control of the Alps of South Eastern Australia and then using this inroad as a foot hold, spread far and wide across this nation under the guise of an environmental movement that has got this Country by the balls and is bleeding the heart of this Country dry.

We do not intend to succumb to the weapon against suffrage that is destroying our culture, "Political Correctness."

We do not intend to get into scientific debate on issues that always have two sides and the semantic play achieves nothing, but indecision.

We do not subscribe to the view that Australia has to follow world trends that do nothing but hurt the Australian populous, especially when these trends are driven by the same agendas of greed, power and insensitivity that are driving their cousins here.

We do not intend to allow politicians to rule as opposed to serving without a fight.

We DO believe that green is good and there are many green people in this Country with a number of fine groups representing the balance of green in conjunction with a balance of the need to live and thrive, including 95% of all landholders.

We do believe that our Australian Alps are there for the people of today and tomorrow, but to deny the use of them to recreation such as 4X4, Horse riding, Camping, Motorbikes, Controlled Hunting, Free Commercial Photography is no longer Australia. Open slather to anything attracts abuse, but the NPWS through education and control could have all these things happening in a symbiotic relationship with the Environment that would only enhance our population's lives. Our wallets are full of licenses that are just a revenue raising tactics, a control, or in conspiracy terms, big brother data gathering. If you want to carry on an activity on public lands, the only prerequisite need be a course in such activities that educates the public on its responsibilities of the environment and the activities effects. There is no such thing as Wilderness in our Alps. Man has been interacting with these mountains in the form of one culture or another since time immoral. Of course small tracts of terrain have to be set aside for special purposes, but the majority of our wildlife have happily accepted a close relationship with man and with the past 2003 disaster this has become more so than ever. Emotional tactics by green movements to rest control of our bush from human interaction has proved, is still proving and will continue to prove to be a disaster of proportions that has stolen and is stealing generations of care by those that don't have the required doctorate.

When SOS was first started it gave a voice to a few. I never in my wildest dreams expected it to gather the momentum that it has and the consistent daily increase in subscription is over awing to say the least. The response from subscribers is overwhelming and for every negative message received there 300+ positive ones.

Our Mission is to let readers see it as it is, from real Australian people who are forced to live it and to hear it in un-politically correct, but real, terms, the situation surrounding our beloved Alps and all the woes that have befallen them. To make accountable the Politicians, Bureaucrats, Radical greens that through either ineptitude, or Agenda, or Corporate greed, or all of the above have failed to place their loyalty to the Australian peoples needs first. Our Rural families are a minority brought about by the unfettered globalisational policies of the current and preceding governments that have failed them and us dramatically and as such are entitled to be heard. If the only way that, that is possible is through SOS and we are able to at least make the reader think a little more laterally than the diatribe of agenda driven views that has been the indoctrination process of successive governments with the media's help over the years, then I will be happy.

If when people put there mark on their vote they have considered such sides of the issues as we have put them, I will be happy.

If Politicians have to consider this site as controversial, I will be happy.

If we incite others to start their own un-politically correct sites and tell it as it is, I will be happy.

If we at least give a little heart to some very despondent, loyal hard working Australians that feel they are being down trodden and destroyed without just cause, I will be very happy indeed.
But most important of all, if we break the strangle hold of radical green groups and politicians, giving real people with a desire for sound environmental practices the opportunity to associate both themselves and their donations, with Green Groups that that sincerely offer genuine balanced research, views and dialogue with intentions to see that their values symbiotically, along with their environmental concerns enhance our alpine and rural families lives and livelihoods, then I will be overjoyed.

SOS makes no apology for being in your face and if we are there, may we suggest you look hard in the mirror and reflect on your actions.

# posted by S.O.S-NEWS Editor @ 11:30 AM