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Canberra Today 15°/18° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Opinion: St Shane of the imaginary animals

LAST week in Canberra was a corker for all of our imaginary animals; the imaginary pigs in the pig farms that don’t actually exist and the imaginary chooks in the chook farms that don’t exist were celebrating loudly.

Mark Parton
Mark Parton
That was when our sole Greens MLA, Shane Rattenbury, improved the lives of those animals, which don’t exist, by thrusting animal cruelty laws through our Legislative Assembly.

He managed to ban the use of sow stalls in pig farms in the ACT and the use of battery cages in the farming of eggs. The problem is, we don’t actually have any pig farms or battery egg farms. This has as much effect on animal welfare as the carbon tax will have on global temperatures: bugger all!

This Bill was so important to Ratters that it formed a part of his agreement to become a minister in the three-ring circus on London Circuit. At the same time, that Shane was touting these news laws a great triumph, Alistair Coe, the boy wonder from the evil conservatives was suggesting that this was nothing more than Greens grandstanding and that the laws were redundant.

Does Alistair not have a heart? No compassion for the make-believe pigs of the ACT? Clearly not.

Now that this legislative milestone is behind us, I’m pondering what my friend Mr Rattenbury could turn his attention to next.

I gather that whaling has already been banned in the ACT, which is just as well considering the number of people who want to harpoon the Skywhale.

It’s about time we confront the cruel trade in unicorn horns, which authorities have ignored for decades and Canberra will be a better place if we can run the unicorn horn hunters out of town.

And what about the working conditions of Santa’s elves? Do they have meal breaks? Has anyone ever sighted a workplace agreement from the toy factory? Are the elves having sufficient meal breaks?

Since the disbanding of the CTMU (Christmas Toy Makers Union) after that unfortunate incident involving the misuse of Santa’s sleigh, the elves have been backed into an industrial corner.

We wait to hear more from the Greens

Mark Parton is the breakfast announcer at 2CC

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Mark Parton

Mark Parton

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