Tomorrow, a road convoy will set off from Port Hedland in Western Australia for a journey across the country. Two more convoys will leave Perth and Cairns on Thursday. By the end of this week, 11 convoys will be in motion, all heading to a single convergence point next Monday. This is the ''convoy of no confidence''.
The convergence point is Canberra. The show of no confidence is in the federal government.
''We will be driving across the Nullabor,'' one of the organisers, Matt Thompson, told me. He and his wife, Janet, are cattle producers in Western Australia. They are part of an industry mobilised by anger towards the government.
But the protest is about much more than cattle.
''We were hesitant to participate due to time and cost, but two things put us over the line,'' said Thompson, who will be driving a campervan. ''The first was reading the 340-page Clean Energy Bill 2011 [the federal carbon tax bill], and the other 12 bills to which it is attached.
''The words 'global warming' are not mentioned but monetary transfers to the United Nations are outlined and power is given to an international consortium of finance companies. This bill makes the Copenhagen treaty [COP15] look like a children's book.
''There was also Marlee Ranacher's heart-wrenching story on 60 Minutes about the impact on her and her family of the government's knee-jerk decision to ban exports of cattle to Indonesia. So we decided to drive across the Nullarbor as part of the convoy of no confidence in the federal government.''
In Canberra the assembled protesters will call for a double dissolution of Parliament so the government can seek a mandate for the sweeping changes it is proposing, especially the carbon tax which the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, ruled out during last year's election campaign. The idea for the convoy came from the president of the National Road Freighters Association, Mick Pattel, who proposed that some heavy freight trucks leave Katherine, in the Northern Territory, and drive all the way to Canberra.
The emotional fuel for the protest was the devastation caused to the live cattle trade by the government's sudden decision to shut down live exports after the ABC broadcast images of cruelty to cattle in an Indonesian abattoir.
That was a month ago. The project has spread and thickened since then. ''Because of the sheer number of people wishing to be involved we had to have more [convoy] start-up points to allow people greater access,'' Pattel said.
Three issues are driving the participants: first, their sense that the government has comprehensively mismanaged and misunderstood the live-cattle export industry; second, a belief in the high cost and pointlessness of the proposed carbon tax; third, a sense that the Gillard government, with low public support, no majority in Parliament, and no electoral mandate for its policies, has lost legitimacy and should seek a mandate by holding a new election.
The spark for all this was the broadcast on May 30 of the ABC's Four Corners program A Bloody Business, which showed footage of Australian cattle being brutalised in a primitive Indonesian abattoir.
The great irony is that the program has set off a disaster for the live-cattle industry that could cause thousands of cattle to die of starvation as feed runs out and fuel for water pumps cannot be paid for. The loss of export income will amount to hundreds of millions of dollars this year alone.
The federal politician most expert in the live cattle trade, Senator Chris Back, a veterinarian and former consultant to the trade, described the images broadcast on Four Corners as ''repulsive'' but he also proposed practical advice which, if taken, would have prevented a government suspension of the live export trade.
Back, a Liberal senator for Western Australia, urged the rapid installation of Australian-made cattle crushes in the key Indonesian abattoirs. These are standard equipment on Australian properties and would have allowed livestock to be stunned before slaughter, as they are in Australia.
Instead, on June 7, the government suspended the entire trade. Two months later, it is fitfully allowing a resumption of live exports and has set aside $30 million in emergency compensation. The industry has taken a huge hit. Jess Sullivan, whose family runs Cave Creek station in the Northern Territory, described the impact of government intervention in a letter that Senator Back quoted into Hansard:
''Yes, the images [on TV] were horrific, we don't accept it, and we don't condone it … I'm sure the program's makers were delighted with the interest sparked by their production but … did they really mean to bring an entire industry to its knees and [damage] Australia's relationship with Indonesia?
''Was throwing hundreds of stations into an uncertain future, that could see three generations of some families lose everything, what they intended? Because, congratulations to them, that's what they have achieved.''
Shane Stafford, a stock and station agent in north Queensland, is backing the convoy. ''Every day I talk to hard-working people under severe financial stress … because someone in a cosy office in Canberra is squeezing the life out of them.
Senator Back told me: ''Everyone in the convoy to Canberra will be making a significant sacrifice in terms of time, money and energy. They want to draw attention to the plight of the bush and the feeling they are being ignored by the federal government. This convoy is driven by sheer frustration.''
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