Western Australian farmer Michael Baxter has been described as a modern day hero who should be hailed for resisting “the bullying of the multinational green movement”, says WA Liberal MP Rick Wilson. Mr Wilson gave a speech in federal parliament last Wednesday, praising Mr Baxter’s win in the WA Supreme Court against his organic farming neighbour Steve Marsh, in the Marsh v Baxter case.
Mr Marsh had sought $85,000 in damages and a permanent injunction to stop his neighbour growing and swathing genetically modified (GM) canola, after his organic certification was suspended due to the discovery of GM contamination in late 2010.
“The environmental industry, led by Greenpeace, has constantly attacked the science of biotechnology, even going so far as to break into a CSIRO research facility and destroying GM crop trials,” Mr Wilson said.
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But Mr Wilson said Mr Baxter “stood firm in the face of legal intimidation, a media smear campaign led by ‘experts’ such as celebrity surfers, and industry organisations who were urging him to settle so the bad publicity would just go away”. Mr Wilson – former grains committee chairman of the WA Pastoralists and Graziers Association which supported Mr Baxter – said the important precedent set by this case has “reverberated around the nation”.
Read the full, original article: Baxter a ‘hero’: Wilson
