Cattle export protesters fail to show...
Protests against live cattle exports have fizzled across Australia with event organisers blaming "political sabotage" for the poor turnout.
Lead organiser and independent candidate for Ipswich Patricia Petersen says thousands of meat workers and animal activists were expected at the protests held in every capital city and some regional centres across the country on Saturday.
But only a total of 500 people showed up, with a particularly bad turnout of 15 protesters in Brisbane, she says.
Dr Petersen, who is an economics university lecturer, said about 15 people turned up at Parliament House in Brisbane the night before, only to learn later they'd been misinformed about the time.
She believed the event was deliberately sabotaged by political groups after dates and times on the event's Facebook page were apparently changed.
"The number (of protesters) is significantly lower than what we anticipated," Dr Petersen told AAP.
"I believe someone has hacked into our Facebook site because whenever we tried to share the event, the dates and times changed."
She said on top of that, some protesters received phone calls from people claiming to be from Animal Australia, falsely telling them the event had been cancelled.
She also believed her emails were hacked into.
"There has been a very deliberate and spiteful attempt to stop these protests," she said.
"I don't believe it's the cattle producers, but I do believe it's political sabotage."
The protests were part of the second national day of action against live exports.
Police were unable to confirm on Saturday whether they would be investigating Dr Petersen's claims.
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