Wayne Swan won’t get his Budget wish
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Presenting the government wish list. At the risk of being too repetitious, let me point out again that the Labor Government is not really in a position to govern. Tomorrow night Treasurer Wayne Swan simply will outline plans for action. The decisions as to what ends up in this year’s Federal Budget were not made in the secrecy of the Labor Cabinet room. Cabinet just makes the recommendations that the Treasurer announces. The decisions will be made in the coming weeks within the offices of non-Labor Senators. The prospect of Labor getting what it wants through this process are not encouraging. The Liberal and National parties are not interpreting their current poor standing in the opinion polls as a reason to abandon their predilection to oppose most things the Government proposes. Rather they are taking the view that the verdict by the public is best combated by doing more of what the public does not fancy; instead of opposing less the decision appears to have been made to oppose more. Hence on a range of the policies that Wayne Swan announces it will be up to the Greens, Family First and the Anti Pokies man to make the decision. They are now the people with the make or break power and Labor needs the support of all of them which will be ho easy feat when it comes to changing private health insurance and welfare payments. Call in the astrologers. When you publish a newspaper during an election campaign in a country where public opinion polls are banned, yet astrology is a practice taken seriously, it is no wonder that the very proper and respectable Times of India has taken to consulting astrologers about what will happen when votes are counted on 18 May. This morning the paper informed its readers with a story beginning on page one that a rare change of position by Jupiter, which stargazers say happens once in 30 years, is likely to have a mixed astrological effect on the country.
I suppose it makes as much sense as Malcolm Mackerras. Support for animal liberationists grows. The political influence of the animal liberation movement clearly is growing in Australia. It now appears that thoroughbred jumps racing is on the verge of being banned in those states where it remains and the use of whips on horses in all kind of races is to be severely curbed. Next, I expect, will be an effort to stop equestrian events being held over fences, for there is really no difference between a steeplechase around a race course and the jumping component of three day events at which Australian equestrians have been so successful at recent Olympic Games. |
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4 Comments
Re: the proposed jumps racing ban. I think you’re drawing a long bow thinking that people who care about animals can’t discern between jumps racing and equestrian events.
No difference between jumps racing and equestrian show jumping? Give us a break. Horses used in the equestrian events are specially bred for jumping. They jump over a realtively short, carefully laid-out course, albeit with time constraints. Horses used in Steeplechase and Hurdle races are not bred for jumping, they are flat racers who have failed at that discipline. They run a course of up to 5500 metres jumping obstacles that obviously get more difficult as the distance increases. Don’t hear of too many showjumpers being killed in the ring, but lots of racers, even overseas where they are specially bred for jumping.
Yes Brian, very little difference. See this from Horsetalk (http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/saferide/131-eventingincrisis.shtml)
Between 1997 and the time of writing (December 2008), at least 37 eventing riders have died as a result of injuries incurred while competing in the cross-country phase of eventing at national or international level or at Pony Club. These 37 fatal falls have been at all levels of the sport, from domestic one-day events up to Regional Championships level, and they have occurred in most of the recognised eventing countries around the world, with concentrations in the United Kingdom (14) and the United States (8). Most recently, a young girl died after a rotational fall at a Pony Club event in England in October 2008; an American rider who had been severely injured in a fall in 2006 died of complications from her injuries in September 2008; an Irish eventing rider died in August 2008, probably as a result of an eventing fall two weeks earlier.
There have also been an alarming number of horse deaths in eventing in recent years. However, accessing information about these is not easy, as these deaths were often not reported in the past. Certainly in the last few years horse deaths in competition have been increasingly visible in news reports, but it is not possible to say whether the rate of horse deaths has increased over time. Regardless of this, however, at least 19 eventing horses, many of them top-level performers, have died since the beginning of 2007, most of them in the US
what agenda are you running here richard? yes there are deaths in eventing - human and equine - but the ratio is far less than in jumps racing. the training of the horses is entirely different and so are the conditions under which the competition is run. i think you would need to compare participation rates to make a true comparison - ie based on participation rates in eventing worldwide at all levels from pony club to elite professional. by comparison in jumps racing in victoria there seem to be horse fatalities at nearly every meet. Those that compete in eventing are in the vast majority amature riders, competing on their own horses, many of whom have been given a long term life beyond racing as competition and recreational horses and which would otherwise be dentined for the knackery. maybe you should just focus on running bottle shops instead of trying to comment on topics where you clear have absolutely no idea