Page 1081 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 2012
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On Wednesday morning I went hot air ballooning from the very early hours. I looked at the paper briefly at 5.30 am before heading out, but the only story I read was the energy efficiency policy announcement on the front page. The story about Parkwood was on page 2, and I simply did not get that far in the paper at that time. The result was that when I went on Ross Solly’s program just after 8.30 am to talk about energy efficiency, I was not across the detail of the incident. I knew little more than there had been an incident, but as I was not expecting to be interviewed on it, I had not sought further information at that time.
Now, let me turn to the transcript of that interview. I was asked by Ross Solly on ABC 666 for my comments on the incident at Parkwood, and I pick up the transcript from there:
SR: to be honest, Ross, I haven’t seen the details, and it’s probably not for me to make a comment.
Presenter; you know the story though Shane Rattenbury and I’m sure you know what happened yesterday.
SR: To be honest Ross I have been busy on some other stuff and I haven’t had a look at the details and its probably best for me not to comment at this point
Presenter: let’s do a hypothetical, if someone broke into an egg farm smashed it all about and poured battery acid through it would you think this is an appropriate thing to do?
SR: well Ross I’m not going to comment on that?
Presenter: You are not condoning that sort of activity are you?
SR: well of course not Ross.
So what you can see from this transcript is that when I was presented with a specific scenario which outlined the circumstances, I was unequivocal about not condoning the destruction and vandalism. To comment on other elements would simply have been inappropriate since I had no information on them. I confess that I did not leap out of the balloon and rush into the office to issue a press release, as some think I should have. To be honest, I do not believe it is my job and nor do I intend to issue a press release every time someone does something illegal in this town.
Later that day, having sought out the details of what took place and in partnership with Ms Le Couteur, I issued a statement given the inaccurate assertions that were being made about my position. In that statement I was critical of the activities that took place at Parkwood, because I do not condone violence, destruction or vandalism. I believe what took place at Parkwood was counterproductive to the important issue at hand—the mistreatment of tens of thousands of chickens at that facility.
One of the important rules of social change is that you can only win reform by taking the public with you. Those who inflicted this damage at Parkwood undoubtedly lost support amongst the public, and they should know that. I believe the same applies to
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