20/08/2026
A doctor of literary studies recently sent this letter to Premier Carroll:
Dear Premier Carroll,
Please be the premier who finally puts a stop to the 'recreational' shooting of native waterbirds. I live near Lake Connewarre in Victoria and my daughter's high school is so close that the shotguns were audible for days at a time during duck shooting seasons.
I went to the lake to help transport injured waterbirds (those who are shot but not killed and left to die by the shooters). I arrived late, and alone. The men who were camped near the lake stared at me with open hostility as I drove towards the lake and I saw with a sinking heart that they had children with them - little boys as young as seven or eight years old, being taught that killing defenceless animals is a form of sport.
Those boys were also being taught to hate women. As I drove toward the lake a huge ute came towards me at speed, and because the track was so narrow I had nowhere to go. That ute was full of men with guns, and they forced me off the track and onto the wet grass, where my car almost became bogged. The men and boys in the camp nearby were laughing.
Premier Carroll, I thought I was going to be r***d and killed at that lake. Although I locked my car doors and was lucky enough to get away, that experience stopped me from going back to help transport more injured birds, and I know I'm not the only woman who has experienced something similar and feels this way.
Duck hunting is not an innocent sport. It is an expression of toxic masculinity which has no place in a democratic society. Research just published by the University of Melbourne shows that young boys who are taught to hate women are also more likely to hold extremist views: Young people more likely to hold hostile attitudes towards women, study finds and so the connections between violence against animals, against women, and terrorism are now clearer than ever.
As bird flu begins to wipe out our native birds and mammals, and One Nation looks set to fuel the misogyny, racism, homophobia and transphobia which will steer our country even further towards fascism, I beg you - use your influence to make decisions which will help stop the violence.
The hunters are not 'sportsmen'. Killing birds and teaching young boys to kill for fun, to run women off the road and laugh at them, this is not the same as 'playing a round of golf'.
Please stop the killing. Violence of any kind is not acceptable. And if we endorse one form of violence, the message is clear. Men think 'we are allowed to do this. This is state-sanctioned violence which gives me the right to kill.'
Do these men have the right to kill? And what other 'rights' might this encourage them to think they have?
