Dear OTB,

Do you approve of our land being sold to Indonesia?
Why not allow them to lease it?
The farmers can then invest it surely?
Or am I being naive?

Foxy, I think it varies by State, but most stations are leaseholds anyhow. When you sell a station, you sell the cattle, the infrastructure (windmills etc) and the right to lease them. That is the case in WA anyhow, not sure about the NT. Stations are quite restricted as to what they can do with the land, what they can grow etc. No matter what, the land stays in Australia, even if it has foreign owners. Most of those stations in the North were originally developed by the British.

He is a "saint' ! Ralph...will get even old rusted-on Labour people like me back........however the present lot are a pack of.....

Dear Yabby,

Thanks for that.

I'll have to do a lot more research.

I don't know why but I still don't feel
that much more re-assured.

Dear Ludwig,

How would you feel about the combination of
Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek leading
Labor?

Foxy, "Do you approve of our land being sold to Indonesia?"

No, I don't.

Remember though that other countries also own parts of Australia.

That doesn't justify more foreign ownership, of course.

Yabby, as I understand it, Kelvin Thomson wanted to ban live exports to Bahrain or Pakistan after they were ‘clubbed, stabbed and buried alive.’

It seems that the inhumane treatment of animals is an ongoing problem.

Thomson has repeatedly called for a transition away from live exports towards domestic meat processing to enhance local job prospects, economic prosperity and improve animal welfare outcomes.

He wants a transition out of this trade, not a sudden stop.

I don’t have a problem with the live export trade per se, but I certainly do have a problem with agreements being reached and then breached, thereby putting us in an invidious position of either ignoring the breaches, suspending or shutting down the trade with the relevant countries or running into diplomatic difficulty in trying to assure that the breaches stop.

I totally respect Thomson’s desires in this regard, although I wouldn’t take it that far. I would prefer to keep this line of trade open with countries that will only take live animals, for as long as we stick to our principles and demand that the agreements we make with them about how the animals will be processed are upheld.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/labor-mp-kelvin-thompson-calls-for-live-animal-export-ban/story-e6frg6n6-1226489911596