Sunday Territorian

Toad cull plan not even worth 10c Pauline Hanson has come up with another gem. But making the jobless kill cane toads for cash is just another cheap ploy appealing to people’s prejudices

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DESPITE being a city slicker these days, I do know a thing or two about killing cane toads.

My skills were honed as a kid armed with a nine iron beneath the street light outside my north Queensland home where toads would gather in extraordin­ary numbers.

Some people liked to get inventive by using buckets of acids, homemade flame throwers or spare chest freezer space to perform their northern civic duty of eradicatin­g toads.

Yet I always preferred the simplicity of a golf club and the sporting challenge of trying to land airborne toads on the other side of the road or, even better, the neighbour’s front yard.

During harvesting season, we’d play a deadly game of red rover by trying to whack toads as they emerged hurriedly from burning cane fields.

It was deadly because we never knew quite what else might emerge from those roaring fields of flame.

Animal liberation­ists would probably be appalled.

Yet I’d still leap at the chance to grip that nine iron DOWNTURN’S SILVER LINING: THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A BETTER TIME TO BUY A HOUSE IN DARWIN

Haha! It’s going to get much cheaper yet – continue to hold off purchasing I reckon. John Vanarey

Last person out of Darwin please turn off the lights. George Chambers MCDONALD’S WORKERS TOLD THEY CAN’T TAKE TOILET OR WATER BREAKS OUTSIDE OF DESIGNATED 10-MINUTE PERIODS

Boycott Maccas in support of again and to teach my 12-yearold the importance of keeping his head still while swinging at the biggest toad available.

I think this context is important given my dim view of Pauline Hanson’s proposed cane toad bounty.

I’m not some snivelling, bleeding heart city dweller who’s clueless about what it’s like living with cane toads in workers rights to pee! Cam Brown

Go get Mcf***ed ya Mcc***s. Renn McCormack

How about not forgetting my Mcf***ing sweet and sour sauce you Mcf***s. Stewart Doull

Youngens go to the toilet a lot. Must be all the mcrappen they are eating. Kylie Munro JETSTAR SALE OFFERS AMAZING CHEAP FLIGHTS TO THE NORTHERN TERRITORY

Yeah what a lovely time to visit U lucky folk in the NT, stinking hot and humid...pissin rain.....enough mosquitoes to give you a blood transfusio­n.....bloody ripper....got my ticket booked. Pat Clark plague proportion­s.

Yet despite hating this imported menace as much as anyone, I still think Hanson’s bounty concept is up there with her dumbest contributi­ons to the national policy debate since she burst into the public’s conscience with her gripe about Australia being swamped by Asians.

Hanson might think the cull is an example of her Svengali-like powers to appeal to the electorate. But in truth it is not even an original piece of stupidity.

Katter’s Australian Party MP Shane Knuth has been waxing lyrical about the same thing for years.

In 2008 he even suggested an annual cane toad cull could work like Clean Up Australia Day.

Put aside for a minute the fact that experts have lined up to say Hanson’s plan won’t work and that millions of dollars are already spent annually by government­s trying in vain to control cane toad numbers.

“This has been suggested hundreds of times and anyone who’s ever thought about it for very long decides it’s a terrible idea,” ecologist Rick Shine reckoned this week.

What’s really galling about what the One Nation matriarch is proposing is that, in essence, it’s just the same kind of virtue signalling nonsense that Right-wing types like her now constantly accuse the Left of engaging in.

There’s no practical applicatio­n for what Hanson is proposing. But it works because it appeals to notions that the unemployed are all bludgers, kids are all lazy and that things were better back in the 50s. What bunkum. Hanson’s call for Newstart recipients to earn their welfare killing cane toads is just another way to cruelly attack the unemployed.

Too bad for all our Perth friends and family (and us wanting to go to Perth), but if any of our other friends want to visit. Jaye Whatley

Perth and Alice just don’t count....as usual!! Kerry Macpherson

Great if you live in Darwin, but Alice Springs misses out. Sheralee Taylor WOMAN FILMS MAMMOTH ALLIGATOR IN FLORIDA

Meh. 4m is a big gator but it isn’t as big as they get. And it’s what you would call a bit smaller than an average adult male croc. Poor yanks just can’t compete. Brett Guy

Seen a bigger croc while

It makes me wonder how Hanson would feel about being ordered out with a bucket and spade to collect toads the next time that she’s between political careers.

I’d like her to please explain why after a quarter of a century of being in and out of public life the best she can muster for a policy contributi­on is to dust off someone else’s idea

Where’s the economic blueprint to create more jobs or the proposals to skill the jobless so they can perform the work that’s available?

Of course, the toad cull isn’t about finding solutions. That’s not Hanson’s schtick.

Rather, it’s a cheap ploy to appeal to prejudices.

Does she really think regional Queensland kids are going to put down their electronic gadgets to earn 10c a pop killing cane toads? That’s just rot. Kids in regional Queensland aren’t sitting around dressed in straw hats and overalls while yearning to make a few bucks to spend on jelly babies at the local general store.

They’re just like city kids who idolise Neymar Jnr and Steph Curry and yearn for decent internet speeds so they can play Fortnite with their friends.

Hanson might think regional kids are busting to break out their inner Tom Sawyer or, at least, that their parents should mould them in the way

“... anyone who’s ever thought about it for very long decides it’s a terrible idea”

swimming in the river Luke Kenafake US AIR FORCE WANTS A NEW PROTOTYPE FIGHTER TO REPLACE F-22 RAPTORS AND F-35S IN DOGFIGHTS

Because it’s a lemon and we brought a whole bucket of them. lol Warren Pickering

Here come the armchair generals. Alan Fogarty AUSTRALIAN CRICKET FANS GIVE THUMBS UP TO BOLD FASHION STATEMENT

Canary yellow? That’s Australian green and gold my friend and don’t you forget it! Mark Andrew Feilberg

Has anyone noticed the Marsh Mark Twain’s imagined.

However, these kids would all scoff heartily at the idea that they’d need to trap a staggering 150 toads just to earn the “V-Bucks” needed to purchase the latest outfit for their Fortnite character.

I’m all for eradicatin­g cane toads. I’m all too familiar with the challenge of getting kids to put down their PlayStatio­n controller and to venture outside. But Hanson’s 10c cane toad cull proposal is nothing more than offensive jingoism.

I might have retired the nine iron and probably wouldn’t stand near a flaming field without a good reason.

But I don’t need to live in regional Queensland any more to realise the real pests are politician­s who spruik dumb ideas.

Steven Wardill is The Courier-Mail’s state affairs editor. @stevenward­ill boys either? Look close at the hands. Cameron Wagstaff THE ‘SYSTEMIC’ ISSUES PLAGUING THE BUILDING INDUSTRY FOR ‘DECADES’

Councils should be held accountabl­e for approving buildings that are completed using poor materials or poor workmanshi­p, otherwise what’s is the point of their permits and inspection­s? Jo Burnett

As long as they are “Blue Moonie” mushrooms, everything will be just koool. Steve Pond

meanie..... blue meanie mushrooms. Jason Sadler

 ?? Picture: KYM SMITH ?? Senator Pauline Hanson’s proposal for a bounty on cane toads is up there with her dumbest contributi­ons to the national policy debate
Picture: KYM SMITH Senator Pauline Hanson’s proposal for a bounty on cane toads is up there with her dumbest contributi­ons to the national policy debate
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