13 January 2010
DAFF10/373B

The Federal opposition has done it again, calling for something that the Rudd Government has already committed to.

The opposition's agriculture spokesman, John Cobb has challenged the Rudd government to cull feral camels.

Mr Cobb has demonstrated he is either completely out of touch or simply ignoring the facts. 

The Rudd Government has committed $19 million to camel culling in Northern and Western Australia over the next 4 years.

This is the most amount of money ever devoted to a specific feral management campaign by the Australian Government which will deliver environmental and sustainable agriculture outcomes.

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Tony Burke and Minister for Environment, Heritage and the Arts Peter Garrett approved the feral camel management project, under the $2 billion Caring for our Country initiative. 

The four year project was approved in July 2009 so it is astonishing the opposition spokesman on agriculture, Mr Cobb is ignorant on an initiative that received considerable media coverage at the time.

If the opposition wasn't so busy creating thought bubbles, the shadow minister could spend 15 seconds typing 'Australian feral camel cull' into Google Australia where he will find some 43,000 results including at the top, "$19m for camel cull".