Part of the depopulation plan by disrupting food supplies

Shoot to kill cattle operations in Cape York must stop now, Member for Hill Shane Knuth said.

Mr Knuth said for years parks and wildlife had been performing shoot-to-kill operations, indiscriminately killing unbranded and branded cattle, often without any, or little notice to surrounding landowners who own most of the cattle.

KAP member for Hill Shane Knuth warns Qld Labor not to strangle any more cattle stations and cattle numbers on Cape York

“The department needs to communicate with landowners, who are rarely notified and often held up by government bureaucracy, sometimes waiting up to 50 days before they can obtain a permit to collect their branded cattle from national parks,” Mr Knuth said.

“Cattle are continually shot before landowners are given permission to enter parks to muster their cattle, which is a huge economic loss to the region.”

He said over the past three years more than 5,000 cattle, which could be worth more than $6m on today’s market, have been shot on orders from the Department of Environment.

“The question is, why are neighbouring properties to Cape York National Parks given only one week’s notice, or no notice before the killing of cattle occurs?” he said.

“And when adequate notice is given, it’s always during the wet season when it is far too difficult and dangerous to muster cattle.

“It is quite obvious that this Government wants to drive pastoralists out of the region, so they can lock it up to meet their environmental agenda.”

“I call on the Minister to fix this long-standing issue, streamline the permit process, instruct the department to give adequate notice and work with landowners to muster valuable cattle, instead of destroying this income stream.”

Sally Witherspoon, who has been involved in the cattle industry on Cape York for more than 50 years, (and still runs cattle on a northern Peninsula sublease) says, that National Parks are putting the final nail in the coffin of the beef industry in North Queensland.  

“There is a ridiculous rule that you must contact Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service 40 days before submitting a Permit to Muster application,” Mrs Witherspoon said.  

“The application takes time to be assessed and could then be denied for some reason. For example, too late in the season for a muster.

“National Parks should not be purchased unless there are funds to fully fence and maintain the Park. 

“They are the worst neighbours one could wish for with little to no weed control, no fences, nobody living on the property, little firefighting capability, and a propensity to shoot cattle.

“Shooting from a helicopter is often not humane and it is distressing to think our cattle are being cruelly “hunted” and maybe left to die a slow death.

“It is very telling that graziers on Cape York Peninsula and the north-eastern coast of Queensland are being forced out of business in the only areas of Queensland that have guaranteed rainfall. 

“It is my belief that this is part of a state government drive to disrupt food production.  A plan that is also evidenced by the recent slashing of the Queensland Mackerel quota.”#

Editor: The State Labor Party has just set aside $20m to purchase more cattle properties on Cape York. Since its recent $11.5m acquisition of Bramwell Station and Resort, there are few cattle stations left.

The Labor Party is intent on removing all of 15 remaining white pastoralists then turning Cape York Peninsula into a vast, unmanageable slab of impenetrable scrub. This has already occurred over much of the sterilised land area handed to Aborigines without a secure title.

It will become a potential firebomb of nuclear proportion already home to more than one million feral pigs and tens of thousands of wild dogs.

Yet feeble-minded city people keep voting for the ALP eco-fascists not even thinking about where their next beef steak will come from.