15th November 2006
The drought is severe and there are many farmers and graziers suffering incredibly these conditions. There are also now numerous drovers on the road utilising the TSR’s (traveling stock routes) in an attempt to keep their stock fed and hence their business assets alive, or someone else’s.
The Webb’s are one of these Droving families who have been on the road for months, suffering not only the hardships of drought times, but also suffering the incessant hassling of government and their bureaucrats that all drovers face on their travels as with the other predators.
These problems are expected and dealt with in the normal manner, which the rural folk do accepting their lot and handling it with the best of decorum they can muster. So just what else could go wrong to make a drover’s life more miserable than these dry, dusty, exasperating times?
Well! Hoppi, Warren, Stuart and Wendy Webb found out the other day, and it had nothing to do with the drought. With government regulations about watering traveling stock getting tougher as the drought persists, it has become a regulatory necessity to cart water to the stock by truck as opposed to letting them actually drink from waterways to slate their thirst. To achieve this, the Webb’s must use pumps, as most other Drovers are doing and fill up their tanks and cart the water to the cattle, wherever they may be encamped.
NOW! – some low piece of nasty, despicable %$#@ decided that the pump was fair game and as it was unattended for a period, saw no reason why he/she/they shouldn’t just help themselves and STOLE the unit. This not only was a theft in the worst order, it left the Webb family in dire straits for a period until they could seek urgent assistance from friends and colleagues in the short term to supply the stock with drinking water.
There would not have been anyone in that area that neither knew who the pump belonged to, nor understood the importance that, that pump represented. This is in the caliber of the low-life’s that ratted the ambulance whilst unattended at the Granville train disaster, or a looter after any disaster. Given this act of callous disregard for the travails of the Webb’s and the dirty little theft that was perpetrated there after, SOS-NEWS is calling on any person who may have any knowledge of this theft to report it to us if they are afraid to go to the police. We will not divulge your identity under any circumstances, but be assured we will act upon such information and the appropriate authorities notified immediately.
If the person who actually stole this pump suddenly has a twinge of guilt and would like to correct this despicable act and return the pump, we will also facilitate that with the same anonymity, as such actions would indicate remorse and guilt with a desire to repent such actions.
Our farmers are in a state of dire emergency and the sooner we the public deal with this type of person and their actions, the sooner the message will get out that in these tough times Australians stick together and woe betide those that don’t.
Draw a hundred kilometer circle around Tarcutta, NSW on the highway to Melbourne and in that area almost undoubtedly will reside our thief. C’mon Aussie C’mon.
Brumbyy (with2y’s)
brumbyy@sosnews.org