Tena koe

Hot news from the vested interests countered by our press release below.

Kia ora na

DOC Chief “Out of Touch” With the Public and the Facts

A Coromandel-based conservation group in the forefront of the nationwide fight against burgeoning use of supertoxin 1080 and other residual poisons by government has dismissed this week’s DOC defense of its pest poison regime as “the tired cry of career bureaucrats increasingly out of touch with reality and out of step with the public.”

Upper Coromandel Landcare Association (UCLA) spokesperson Reihana Robinson said today that DOC head Al Morrison’s statement to coincide with nationwide anti-toxin rallies indicted “unprecedented defensiveness” on the part of DOC and showed the department has lost the hearts and minds of New Zealanders and was now firmly on the back foot regarding pest control policy.

“Morrison’s absurd claim that possums are the biggest cause of bovine Tb shows that this former journalist no longer cares for the facts. As DOC chief, Morrison is a public relations professional and spinmaster by trade.  But his latest exercise in fear-mongering and misinformation has taken DOC’s public relations standards to new lows.”

“Farmers and scientists know the biggest cause of bovine Tb is transport of infected herds, not possums as Morrison claims”, Robinson said.  “Furthermore, DOC’s dumping of thousands of tonnes of supertoxins in drinking water catchments, beside homes and farms, in popular tourist spots, and in easily accessible land has become the number one current threat to thousands of tourist and export related jobs both here on the Coromandel and throughout the country….not possums.”

“This weekend’s national day of action against toxic pest control policy delivers yet another loud and clear message that New Zealanders from Westland to Waiheke, from the Karamea to the Coromandel, have had enough of the fact-twisting, coercion, and bullying from those at the center of a hundred-million-dollar per year poison industry,” Robinson said.

“Morrison’s sorry attempt to blunt this weekend’s rallies only serves to demonstrate how out of touch he is personally with the public mood and, of greater concern, with the facts.”

ends

© Scoop Media