Election 2016

[dutchroll]

"There's no one who can seriously argue that Tony Abbott would not have done better...."

 

Bolt-logic. "How can you possibly not like my friend the most far right conservative leader in recent Australian history who was elected on the back of a disastrously dysfunctional Labour Party which self destructed? I mean, how is that possible that my friend Tony was elected for any reason other than all of Australia adores him?"

 

A few more of my brain cells self-destruct every time I hear Bolt speak. Pretty soon I'll need to be fed through a straw.

 

 

[willedoo]

The anti-Halal crowd always make me giggle too.

 

Strictly speaking, if you want to wipe Halal off the face of the Earth, then you must ban donations to charity, ban cricket and soccer, ban swimming, and ban eating out. All of which are strictly Halal in the Muslim world and have always been. Of course this requires that you have no clue what "Halal" actually means in the first place.

Dutch, are you confusing anti-halal with anti halal certification?

 

I don't know of anyone against halal food as that covers most of what we eat. A lot of people are against halal certification because of the amount of the fees to gain it, and the lack of transparency as to where percentages of it end up.

 

For example, in Pauline's brief conversation with Sam Dastyari on election night, she stated her opposition to halal certification, not halal.

 

Cheers, Willie.

 

 

[dutchroll]

Dutch, are you confusing anti-halal with anti halal certification?

I understand what you're saying Willie, but I've met very few people who know the difference and I don't for one minute think Pauline Hanson does. I mean....she thinks we're about to be overrun by Asians. That's something I haven't heard since the anti-Vietnamese refugee sentiment when I was in high school in the 80s!

 

Interestingly, according to some of the manufacturers themselves, the "Halal certification" costs a tiny (very, very tiny) fraction of the retail cost of the product, and if you were to exclude the market which becomes available with the Halal certification, the loss of market demand would be a huge impact to them. These are people employing aussie workers and selling aussie-grown products.

 

A classic example is the call to cease certifying Australian beef as "Halal". This would cause a massive collapse in our export market and absolutely crucify Australian beef producers, ie, our own farmers. People are too emotive to realise this.

 

 

[willedoo]

I think the way for halal certification to gain total public support would be for the halal certification authorities to charge only what it costs them to implement and administer it, and to throw the books open so they can prove once and for all that some of the money doesn't end up where it shouldn't be.

 

That would help dispel the conspiracy theories getting around.

 

I guess there would be three distinct groups - those that don't know the difference between halal and halal certification; those opposed to certification because of the reasons I mentioned; and those that object to the requirement of any religious certification of food, no matter what faith involved.

 

 

[dutchroll]

Well if you object to religious certification of food you open a total can of worms.

 

Food is a free market, unless you believe in essentially marxist/communist principles where food is produced and allocated in accordance with full Government regulation.

 

If a food producer wants to certify their food, at a cost, for consumption by the Church of the Temple of Psychick Youth (yeah that's a real religion), then that is entirely their business. You can object to buying it all you want, and refuse to buy it all you want, but to attempt to legislate against it is really going against all principles of free trade etc.

 

The beautiful irony of Pauline Hanson is that in her anti-Halal crusade she basically wants the Government to control who sells what food to whom and at what price (she wants Halal certification banned), while apparently championing individual liberty and anything which benefits aussie workers.

 

I don't know how you can contradict your own principles so much.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

These idiots end up hurting Australian companies because NZed doesn't care about Halal certification

 

No Cookies | The Advertiser

 

There was a senate inquiry into this last year that showed halal certification was a economic bonus to every company trying to sell into the middle east

 

 

[dutchroll]

........and to throw the books open so they can prove once and for all that some of the money doesn't end up where it shouldn't be.

That would help dispel the conspiracy theories getting around.

Prediction:

 

Conspiracy theorists will say the Halal certification books were doctored to make it appear that the money remained in Australia and did not go to terror organisations.

 

No amount of evidence makes conspiracy theories go away. This is why they are conspiracy theories. Obama eventually produced his long-form birth certificate. What did the birthers then say? Yep - it was obviously forged, because naturally it's a conspiracy.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Who was the biggest Truther? The guy that sent a private detective to Hawaii and was never heard of again: Trump

 

 

[storchy neil]

hold the bloody boat you guys with a halal cert it taste better :oops:neil

 

 

[Marty_d]

As per the "Gun Culture" thread, "truthers" (true irony in that name) are now saying the massacre at Sandy Hook was made up in an attempt to bring in gun control. Worse still they bully grieving parents telling them their child never existed. Morons.

 

 

[M61A1]

Some fuel for the fire.....for meat to be Halal certified, the beast must have it's throat cut by a Muslim butcher. That means discrimination in the workplace. Imagine the sh1tfight, if we someone's employment criteria was to Christian. I'm no fan of either camp, but I seem to recall some Christian school having a hard time with a discrimination case because wouldn't employ a teacher who wasn't Christian.

 

 

[Marty_d]

While I agree that it is discrimination in the workplace, I don't think it'd be a problem in real life. If the job requirement is for someone who is a) a qualified/registered slaughterman and b) has the language skills to chant the traditional prayers or whatever when slitting the throat, there's unlikely to be a queue of non-muslim applicants lining up for it.

 

 

[Bruce]

There was an abattoir near Geelong where they had a Halal section. The Moslem who did the work of praying etc sometimes just sent in his "Halal Certified" stamp. Nobody complained and the customers never knew that an infidel sometimes wielded the stamp.

 

I got this story from a meat inspector who worked there at the time.

 

 

[M61A1]

While I agree that it is discrimination in the workplace, I don't think it'd be a problem in real life. If the job requirement is for someone who is a) a qualified/registered slaughterman and b) has the language skills to chant the traditional prayers or whatever when slitting the throat, there's unlikely to be a queue of non-muslim applicants lining up for it.

I read that the Oakey abattoir gained it's Halal cert in 2009, I'd be fairly sure they didn't find the slaughterman locally.

 

This is a cut and paste from the abattoir's website, could this be what some of the fuss is about?

 

2013

 

October. Queensland abattoirs being charged up to $27,000 a month through a religious levy on meat exports in Jakarta to raise money for Islamic schools and mosques20

 

• Scandel has stopped QLD halal meat exports to Indonesia, abattoir operators boycott expensive Halal certifiers endorsed by the Indonesian council of Ulama (MUI)20
   
  
• certifiers must donate a share of their revenue to mosques and Islamic schools.20
   
  
• Australian Halal food services (AHFS)was charging quarter of other certified endorser – was suspended by MUI for engaging in unfair competition that could weaken halal certification20
   
  
• DAFF have no control over approvals for religious certifiers.20
   
  
• Oakey relied on AHFS for certification and were now unable to sell Halal meat in Indonesia21
  Indonesia was an important market for Oakey product
   
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Marty_d]

It's up to the abattoir if they wish to be halal certified or not. I'm guessing that most businesses if told that in order to get certification would have to pay $27,000/month on religious levies and would be required to donate a share of revenue to mosques and schools, would do a fairly intensive cost/benefit analysis before signing up. I see this more as a problem for Indonesia than Australia, if they want our beef then the Indonesian government should be putting the pressure on MUI to play fair.

 

 

[M61A1]

I'm not really sure what the issues are, I just stumbled across that page from the abattoir itself. I had no issue with Halal, as I thought it was just some religious git blessing the food, but having read that, I am now extremely bothered that it goes way beyond a blessing and extends to handing over more than $300K (for one business) a year to fund religious nutters.

 

I have issues also with bleeding hearts that wont send livestock to a country because of their "barbaric" treatment of animals, but then demand on religious grounds the same "barbaric" treatment be allowed here.

 

 

[Marty_d]

I'm not really sure what the issues are, I just stumbled across that page from the abattoir itself. I had no issue with Halal, as I thought it was just some religious git blessing the food, but having read that, I am now extremely bothered that it goes way beyond a blessing and extends to handing over more than $300K (for one business) a year to fund religious nutters.

I have issues also with bleeding hearts that wont send livestock to a country because of their "barbaric" treatment of animals, but then demand on religious grounds the same "barbaric" treatment be allowed here.

There's a bit of a difference between taking a few minutes to bludgeon a terrified animal to death with sledgehammers, and slitting a stunned animal's throat. Once I accidentally opened up the Australian Standard for abattoirs when I was looking for something else, and it made interesting if slightly gross reading - however one thing I remember is that the animal must be stunned immediately before slaughter. Not sure what the halal tradition is but I assume if it's happening in Australia the abattoir would be required to follow the standard.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Free business idea for you: Oakey discount halal certification

 

 

[M61A1]

From RSPCA website....

 

Exemptions from pre-slaughter stunning requirements

 

There are a small number of abattoirs in Australia that have been granted permission from the relevant State or Territory food authority to conduct religious slaughter without prior stunning – for either Halal or Kosher (Jewish slaughter) purposes. These ‘approvals’ are effectively exemptions to standard Australian slaughter practice. The proportion of animals slaughtered under these exemptions is very small, but nevertheless that any animals are slaughtered without stunning is of concern to the RSPCA.

 

For cattle and sheep, the requirements for religious slaughter without prior stunning are set out in a nationally adopted guideline Ritual Slaughter for Ovine (Sheep) and Bovine (Cattle):

 

• For cattle, stunning is still required but this occurs immediately after the throat is cut. Two separate slaughtermen must be present: one to perform the cut (which must sever both the carotid arteries and jugular veins) and one to perform the stunning.
   
  
• For sheep, stunning is not required except where the animal is distressed or does not rapidly lose consciousness, in which case they must be immediately stunned.
   
  

 

The requirements for cattle and sheep are different because cattle take longer than sheep to lose consciousness as they have an extra blood supply to the brain at the back of the neck running along the vertebrae.

 

All Halal slaughter of chickens in Australia includes prior stunning.

 

The RSPCA is concerned there are much greater risks of an animal suffering during slaughter without stunning than for conventional slaughter. Slaughtering an animal while fully conscious requires additional handling and restraint and means that the animal will experience pain associated with the throat cut and subsequent bleeding out. For these reasons, the RSPCA is strongly opposed to all forms of slaughter that do not involve prior stunning of the animal. Where the RSPCA is opposed to a practice we believe is cruel – but not illegal – we engage with the relevant industries and government with the ultimate aim to see an end to the practice.

 

 

[M61A1]

Free business idea for you: Oakey discount halal certification

Good idea....Mick's Halal Pork Products

 

 

[fly_tornado]

It might surprise you to learn that most "religious ministers" that is people that have had religious instruction and can claim to have an insight into God's will, receive the majority of their remuneration as employee benefits, where the religious organisation pays the Fringe benefits tax, ie doesn't pay the tax.

 

It's a beautiful lurk, to bust into halal certification market you only really need a post office box and a mobile phone.

 

 

[M61A1]

It might surprise you to learn that most "religious ministers" that is people that have had religious instruction and can claim to have an insight into God's will, receive the majority of their remuneration as employee benefits, where the religious organisation pays the Fringe benefits tax, ie doesn't pay the tax.

It's a beautiful lurk, to bust into halal certification market you only really need a post office box and a mobile phone.

Not surprised, well aware, and totally against it.

 

Wealthiest institutions on the planet, telling us to help the poor.....by giving to them.

 

 

[willedoo]

Most food items probably don't change due to certification. Vegemite is halal certified but the recipe hasn't changed; it ticks all the boxes by default. On the other hand, to keep their certification, McDonalds now microwave bacon so as not to contaminate the hotplate.

 

Or so I'm told. It might be just another conspiracy theory.

 

 

[old man emu]

This halal certification is just not kosher.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

halal certification is chicken feed to education, the big GPS school in Toowoomba pays the principal $489K a year, that's a skim of $400 per student gov subsidies $5k