MP Colin Boyce says Rockhampton residents are “beside themselves” after a provocative billboard was erected in the beef capital.
Pete Davidson did not hold back when responding to PETA’s criticism over the actor and comedian’s choice to buy a new dog.
The prominent billboard, which has gone up in recent days, features a mock-up photo of a koala on top of a fork skewering a piece of meat and the message: “Eating meat kills koalas. Bushland is being cleared for the animals you eat. Go vegan.”
The billboard has been hired for the entire month of June by controversial activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
It has angered many locals, including federal MP Colin Boyce who slammed the billboard as “absolutely outrageous”.
“People are beside themselves,” Mr Boyce, the Member for Flynn, told ABC Radio.
“It’s absolutely outrageous to put a sign like that in the beef capital of Australia. Farmers and graziers throughout Central Queensland in particular around the greater Rockhampton area … this is what feeds people.
“They are hardworking men and women who are going about their lawful business and for people like PETA to suggest they’re killing koala bears is just absolutely outrageous.”
The PETA billboard that has been erected in Rockhampton. Picture: Michelle Landry/Facebook
A PETA spokeswoman defended the billboard, saying it was “a reminder to farmers and shoppers that eating the flesh of cows, pigs and chickens kills koalas too”.
She told the ABC that “hundreds of thousands of hectares” of Australian bush had been cleared to make way for farm animals.
The spokeswoman said while PETA “loves farmers”, they contributed to animal suffering as well as climate change and needed to “transition” out of animal farming.
But Mr Boyce said much of Australia’s grazing land was “not koala habitat at all” and accused PETA of trying to brainwash “ignorant people” including schoolchildren.
“It’s hypocrisy on a grand scale from people who are nothing more than activists, and anarchists at that,” he said.
Another federal LNP politician, Capricornia MP Michelle Landry, said PETA’s claims were “absolute nonsense”.
“Let’s look at how much prime agricultural land is being destroyed by wind farms and solar fields in the name of ‘renewable energy’,” she posted on Facebook.