From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Fri Apr 07 2000 - 00:57:56 MDT
Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> Here's a very brief March news report dealing with the matter:
>
> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2000/03/item20000322182336_1.htm
>
> I don't endorse the Tourism spokesman's rather silly declaration, but it
> might give a hint of the way bluff Aussies regard this kind of deceit.
>
> Damien
Quoted from the ABC story:
Tourism chief John Brown has
criticised the NRA over its use of
Australian crime statistics in the
advertisements.
Mr Brown, as chairman of the Tourism Task Force,
says the wildly inaccurate claims could damage the
tourism industry.
"The only thing in our favour is that the rednecks who
constitute the NRA are unlikely to come here because
they can't bring their gun and I think that Australia's
image as a friendly, safe destination in the world is
pretty well entrenched, particularly in the Americans'
minds, and whether this will have any lasting damage is
a matter of conjecture," Mr Brown said.
Considering that the average NRA member is more educated, wealthier, and
higher paid than the average American, the concept of calling NRA
members 'rednecks' is typical disinformation. The only way they could be
called 'rednecks' is because they are more likely to live in rural
areas, where there are little or no gun control laws beyond national
ones. Australia, like many countries that make lots of tourism money off
of Americans and others, underreports much crime, or alters the way they
are reported. I found the NRA page about this story to be far closer to
fact, and they fact that they actually put statistics up and citations
from verfiable sources, versus your ABC story which reported NO evidence
to back its claims. I find no deceit in the story. Show countervailing
evidence or statistics that discredit the stats the NRA posted, or
concede the point of their evidence.
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