Bob Wales and Matthew Fletcher, vice-president and president of the Namoi River Community Group write to points out a number of intering points in the continuing saga of Baiada’s plans for five Manilla poultry boiler farms.
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THE silence is deafening, and there is a “fowl” stench.
That’s the best description of two significant events that have come to light over the past weeks involving the large player in the meat chicken production industry, and the local council that overwhelmingly places it before its own constituents and ratepayers.
The first being the ABC TV program Four Corners, which exposed the current state of illegal labour practices in Australia’s food industry. The biggest player in the meat chicken production industry, Baiada, was the first cab off the rank in this investigative report.
The Four Corners report revealed that Baiada uses labour supply contractors to secure foreign workers on 417 visas, etcetera.
Baiada then pays the labour supply contractor, not the workers, thus relieving itself of the responsibility of complying with awards, immigration requirements or allegations of exploitation.
The program then exposed the exploitation of these migrant workers, the inhumane working conditions, work hours and the failure to pay these workers correctly.
The approval of five broiler farms at the property Strathfield, consisting of 70 sheds (“the largest of its type in Australia”), was unanimously approved by Tamworth councillors, based upon the premise that this would allow Baiada to build a new abattoir/processing plant, relocate its Out St abattoir, and the creation of jobs.
These developments were approved at the expense of the health and safety of Manilla residents.
Mayor Col Murray has publicly stated that: “We’re sort of looking at about 600 new jobs and I think any local government area in Australia would jump at that scale of development”, and another councillor stated that his reason for approving these developments was “jobs” for the common man.
The question now is who will be filling these job vacancies and under what conditions?
The second point of interest was recently revealed in the NSW Land and Environment Court.
A group that indicated it would oppose the Strathfield developments from the onset and is now appealing Tamworth Regional Council’s decision to approve these developments in the NSW Land and Environment Court, was recently challenged in the court on its eligibility to make these appeals.
The reason being that TRC had not received its submission by the due date, despite it being posted, and Australia Post confirming its delivery on time.
It has been determined by the court that the reason TRC did not receive this submission was because, after Australia Post had delivered this submission to TRC’s postal box, persons unknown then removed the submission from the postal box.
It was then placed back into the mailing system, via an Australia Post street mail box, to then be delivered again to TRC’s postal box, to only again then be removed by persons unknown.
Eventually, the submission turned up, well past the due date, at Ray Walsh House, being stamped that it was handed in over the counter.
The appeal is now continuing in the court.
Interesting to say the least.
