Only about 1000 people attended the rally in Sydney yesterday, but organisers were claiming three times that number.
The low turnout occurred in spite of the fact the protest was timed to coincide with school holidays in an attempt to maximise its size.
Numbers were not their only exaggeration. Speakers expressed fears that native animals would be put in danger, that hunters were engaged in a “cultural war on natural conservation” and that parks would become shooting ranges.
The Greens, National Parks Association, Public Service Association, WIRES and former Labor environment minister Bob Debus addressed the crowd with the same emotive and ungrounded propaganda they’ve been using for months in their efforts to have the NSW government overturn the decision to introduce regulated hunting to national parks.
Former Greens leader Bob Brown claimed the moral high ground, saying, “We are here for the children, we are here for our future generations and our fellow creatures on this planet.”
The crowd jeered Shooters & Fishers MLC Robert Brown when he appeared on the balcony of Parliament House, though they mistook him for fellow S&F MLC Robert Borsak.
The protest is not expected to have any real impact on ongoing development of the regulations that will control hunting in national parks.
Hunting was originally to have commenced earlier in the year but has been delayed for various reasons, including controversy over alleged illegal hunting by a Game Council officer and volunteer.
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