I still have the email, with the suggested script, and the recommended changes to essentially the entire story. So Duffy gets a regular spot, that is not evidence of any absence of green/left censorship. They are more clever than that.

Another example was when I was speaking on private forestry. At the time I was one of the top 7 private foresters in Australia. I was allowed 2 minutes of closely vetted airtime to convey 3 generations of forest management insights. And who do you think they had for the rest of this "country hour"? They had some sort of Perth based fashion designer for powder caked Liberal Party buzzards, who's only claim to fame was that she "got lost" for four hours in a forest as part of a green media stunt. She got 58 minutes to ramble on about how she does her little bit for the environment "by incorporating the colours of the rainforest in her creations". As if wearing a turd coloured shirt will solve a piggery's effluent problem.

The simple fact is that the ABC gets a great deal of funding on the basis of a claimed service to the bush but rarely delivers. Prime time on the urban airwaves is pure green/left territory.

Let's get back on track. The fact remains that some still think this country rides on the back on the sheep's back. It doesn’t! At best 4 per cent!

In Australia one can freely choose one's career and livelihood. Some in the rural community believe they have roots and right to public moneys to bail them out for the next inevitable flood, drought, price collapse etc. Why are you special?

This group in our society has its own political party that AMPLIFIES the duress of a few. Many are won over by the bleatings of the National Party in the context of a gerrymandered political system ensuring their favoured status. Being a new country with a fragile eco-system - we have over extended ourselves. Admit it.

We have heard the whining of the trade unions about "workers rights" which we all know are "workers priviliges" won at the expense of other workers not so powerful. The so-called war on the farmers is simply nothing more than their erosion of their privileged status.

Facts? Well show me where land is exchanged at zero value. No, you cant because we have a system of bailing out and land has positive value. The fair go principle so blindly followed to help the MINORITY.

Australia is gradually evolving to be accountable. I remember the bleatings from manufacturing industry in the 1980s when tariffs were reduced and their projections of gloom and doom. I remember how the unions squealed about workers rights. Now our rural sector. Well, YES there is a war - one on their privileged status. I look forward to when the ATO addresses family trusts and brings their privileged status down to the rest of us.

What about a fair go to make the rural sector just another partner in Australia. If you cant lump it, get out and I sincerely hope my money will help you LEAVE, not stay and find peace in the suburbia.

There is NO war only in the minds of the fringe amplified by their political party in a gerymandered system.

Gerrymander? Remco, this is 2006. Have you spent the last 30 years with your head in a paper bag? Or are you just back from the planet Gonzon? And given you apparent dislike of all things rural, Can we assume that you will be voting in favour of a new state boundary just north of Newcastle, South of Woollongong and somewhere near Lithgow?

Here's your big chance to put your 'parasitic farmers' theory to the test, matey. What are you waiting for? And as your imagined gerrymander will no longer be in your city state, it won't effect you at all.

Can I have a $100 donation to the cause?

It's about fairness. Fairness to chose where one lives and work and assume the risks (and rewards) without drawing on the goodwill of others (the 96 per cent) who dont have always have all the information and swayed by a slick public relations image of suffering (you know the pic of the farmer on the parched land with a dead sheep behind him).

Good luck if you make your millions but if you plead for bailout, then expect the piper to also call in the good years. He doesnt does he?

Let's focus instead on the excellence in the rural community and its potential. Focus on Australia's image as a good clean country and what we could do with quality products. Focus on the excellent land it has and how it continues to be responsibly managed. Focus on the new technologies being exploited to manage the larger farms. But hey, let's cut the victim talk of some on the fringe.

No Remco, it is about the fairness of choosing to live in a place but still be subject to the ill-informed whimsies of metropolitan swing voters who begrudge any benefit to the regional community while wallowing in subsidised urban largesse. Only 70% of the wealth that is generated in the regions actually circulates back to the regions. And we are expected to accept that as a fair price to pay for the privilege of being governed by a boofhead from Glebe on a mission from Captain Planet?
Give me a break.

So you feel that other people owe it to the rural community?

So others need to act as insurers to bail out the farmers for the next INEVITABLE drought, flood, fire, famine etc. What about self insurance - putting away a bit in the good years (or paying the "others" back in good years).

The farmers choose to live where they do. Some on the fringe are hurting, and like thousands others, are resisiting.

Australia has rich lands. It has smart people and potential to excell (again like the Israeli farmers working in most difficult conditions sometimes). It claims to be among the world's most efficient.

It is about adapting or getting out.

It is not about some fuzzy concept of spillovers to the urbanites and hey, now pay me back when the vagaries turn sour as you put it.

It is about being strong and independent and realistic. Producing better, accepting the vagaries of climate or getting out.

Again, I point to the fact there is no zero value land as a leading indicator that I am right. Soft touches are not in the long term interest of the farmers. Read for example Michael Porter's Competitive Advantage of Nations.

Farmers have lived the lie of victims too long. The strong are laughing up their sleeves at the whingers on the fringe and capturing the benefits.