Queensland Farmer takes legal action against Peter Beattie and his Cabinet? (September 2003)
"Courier Mail" reporter Peter Morley reported that Trevor Mahaffey, the S-E Qld farmer who produces "Cleopatra's Bath Milk" was found to have MANURE in his MEAT. Sounds good doesn't? What really was the truth?
After speaking to Peter Morley he advised that he was not present in court to hear it first hand and this was just hearsay. He ran a later story which alluded to the fact that wasn't true after speaking to Trevor's family.
The truth is that Trevor had a couple of his old Jersey cows slaughtered locally and he brought the meat to the Northey Street Markets at Windsor in Brisbane for sale as ORGANIC MEAT. Unfortunately he did not have the correct permit to cart and sell the meat and received a penalty.
How did the MANURE in the MEAT story come into being?
Well last July it was raining and some mud particle may have ended up on the plastic covering on the outside of the meat. An inspector from SAFE FOODS turned up and "claimed he saw MANURE IN the MEAT!" In court when he was cross-examined by the other person before the court, Mr Bruce Bell from Yandina, the inspector ADMITTED:-
* he was the only person who saw it
* he did not get it tested
* he did not have a laboratory report
* it may have been clay
* it probably was not manure
* it was NOT IN THE MEAT!
That of course did not stop Peter Morley from running the defaming article which said literally "SHIT IN THE MEAT!"
About a month ago Peter Beattie was on a Community Cabinet Meeting on the Sunshine Coast where he was asked by a lady what he was doing about the "RAW MILK ISSUE". Peter Beattie replied "I drank unpasteurised myself when I was young." After further questioning he replied and took the liberty to repeat the DEFAMATION by stating "The Government cannot allow the man who produces Cleopatra's Bath Milk to sell this milk in the shops because he was found to have cow manure in his meat."
After more assertions that people should have the right to buy RAW MILK, Mr Beattie said: "I am frightened to death." He then said "I think you should speak with Wendy Edmond."
Wendy Edmond (the Health Minister) said: "We are not stopping you from drinking unpasteurised milk - you should get a cow or a goat and milk it yourself". (This of course is extremely impractical if one lives in Brisbane.) Edmond then said something like "Unpasteurized milk is definitely not to be sold in the shops".
Someone then stated, "The body cannot properly assimilate Calcium and other minerals from pasteurized milk."
Edmond then said, "That hasn't been proven."
The person then said, ,i>"It's a fact that osteoporosis has increased dramatically in Australia in spite of the high consumption of milk."
Edmond then said, "There is a danger of "listeria" in unpasteurised." Reply was, "Listeria is also found in other places, like the cutting blades to prepare fruit salad." There was no response.
Re: Misunderstanding of FSANZ ruling on raw milk
Dear MLA Members,
There seems to be some misunderstanding by the Primary Industry Department that FSANZ has the power to or ever will have the power to enforce any State to pasteurise milk!
FSANZ is only advising the States on a uniform code of safe practice to follow.
I have added a file from FSANZ Standard 1.6.2, with regards to allowing unpasteurised milk; it is stated;
“unless an applicable law of a State or Territory otherwise expressly provide” which means it makes it very clear that the States have the sole right to allow unpasteurised milk!
Safe Foods are a private organization that administers the ruling of the State. They do not make the rules but they can advise.
As for the 4 children that had food poisoning up at the Sunshine Coast last year, the Government has blamed it on Trevor Mahaffey’s “bath milk”. The Government holding this up as the reason why unpasteurised milk has to be made illegal will find that it is hard to prove that in court as there was 1,000 families + drank milk that same day and no one else got sick, which means that it was something else that made this family sick, not unpasteuried milk!
The real issue that the parliament needs to deal with is the “safety of pasteurised and homogonised milk”. The scientific evidence shows that we need to put warning labels on all pasteurised and homogenised products as these products are now showing that they have many long term negative health problems.
The QLD Health Department is only concerned with the administration of our health system not the well being of the people of Queensland, which means that we are at the mercies of corporations who dictate “what is good for us” and get you, the Queensland Parliament, to legislate it into a statute law to control what we have to eat where by “endangering our health”. This also means the control of our primary producers, which is the backbone of our food chain.
My Phone number is: (07) 3882 4446
Regards
Trevor Savage
Public Relations Officer
Courier Mail 24th September 2003
Premier Peter Beattie in the Dairy Industry.
Also Bruce Bell was interviewed by Steve Austin today on Radio 612 AM ABC Radio breakfast show. It was very informative.
The following article is interesting - a letter to the editor Courier Mail.
