NSW shot in the Foot

There are two Robert Brown’s in Australian Parliament. One is a NSW MP for the Shooters Party. The other is the leader of the Australian Greens.

It is the former Robert Brown, of the NSW Shooters Party, that is spoken of in Sean Nicholls’ Sydney Morning Herald article “O’Farrell Over a Barrel as the Shooters Take Aim’. 

Though the article does not use particularly emotive language or appear to contain (on the surface at least) bias for or against the Shooters Party, it uses subtle cues in the way it is set out to paint a picture of the party as trophy hunters holding the NSW parliament hostage.

It is images, rather than words, which play the most important role in this portrait.

The initial photograph is of a smiling Shooters Party MP Robert Borsak holding what is (presumably) an elephant tusk:

The caption reads “Deadly Serious”, while in reality the MP does not look serious at all but rather happy to have possession of such a brutally obtained trophy. The Link posted directly beneath the photograph reads “The Thrill Killer”.

Further down in the article is an image of the very same Robert Borsak smiling next to the carcass of a Bull Elephant he had the apparent pleasure of killing. A bleeding bullet wound on the elephants forehead is evident in the photo.

Both of these images portray Borsak in a controversial way. Firstly, Ivory in Western culture is often used to symbolise the useless and brutal killing of animals for mere aesthetics, much like fur. Though the Shooters Party proclaim to be advocating the culling of “feral animals” out of necessity, the evident pleasure of the kill hints that the Shooters Party are attempting to disguise recreational hunting as conservation.

The third image most highlights the idea that the NSW parliament is being held hostage. Similar to the hand written ransom notes popularised in movies, the Shooters and Fishers party demands have been listed as follows;