Their mantra is that "they don't like shooting or hunting and so no one else should either"! The last time I looked, Australia was still a democracy – I am happy to defend my actions, but they simply don't want to know.

Much of the criticism I have received relates to my hunting elephants in Africa. Again it is mostly based on a failure to understand that the culling of rogue, crop-raiding African elephants, is conducted under carefully managed Problem Animal Control programs and under CITES endorsed quotas throughout the world.

I posted an account of a trip to Africa on a hunting website about 10 years ago, where it sat without comment or controversy until it was pointed out, most likely by these same "animal activists" to the mainstream metropolitan media, which then decided to make it an issue.

At the time, I was chairman of the Game Council, which was a favourite target for the extreme Greens in Parliament and elsewhere. When I entered Parliament following the sudden death of former MLC Roy Smith, it served to further infuriate the "activists" and they have carried on a vilification campaign against me ever since. I have no doubt they will ramp up their protests in the next four weeks in the lead-up to the state election.

But let me make a few points for their benefit, not that they want to absorb them.