I heard on the news Irwin's father is turning down a state funeral because Steve wanted to be remembered as a "common bloke." Also I heard they are going to destroy the video tape.

It really is tragic knowing Steve is gone. He was a loved and respected fellow Australian. Unfortunately I do'nt believe he was appreciated as much as he deserved, now he is gone we are now becoming aware of how much he was loved by so many people here and abroad. We will miss him.

Reading that site, I found out why he is not liked as much over there... He was big in promoting the gun ban/confiscation they had over there, that just about eliminated all of the peoples guns.
That made a lot of them VERY bitter about him.

I saw that also. But then, reading other posts on that forum, I saw people talking about ordering such and such a firearm on their so and so permit. I was under the impression that all private firearm ownership in Australia was banned, has that changed I wonder???

What do they do in Oz if dingoes or other dogs are after their livestock, spit at them?

Sue

Australia had a rather sweeping firearm and knife act. While it decreed many firearms and knives illegal, many do remain. I think Steve supported it after seeing the downside of abusive use.I know a lot of aussies, count them as friends. But sometimes I think I'm talking to values from the 1950s. And then again, Germaine Greer, the australian feminist wrote a particularly nasty attack on Steve. I think a translation of my reaction would be ' smack the stupid sheila.' <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Someone just sent me this, kind of cute...

"Somewhere in heaven, a very groggy, very confused angel has just woken up and is trying to figure out why a boisterous Australian man is poking it with a stick."

Feeding the croc while carrying the baby was not too bright. Unexpected things happen, even to those who think that they know what they are doing. Fortunately, he didn't confuse which hand had the kid & which had the chicken.

No ... thats not it. his stance on guns has nothing to do with it. Down here we have different tastes in TV than you guys in the U.S.
Steve's style in front of the camera is too in your face for most Aussie's. I'm not a big fan of his TV work, but I am of his other work.
He found fame in the US on the Discovery network/channel before he was well known across Australia.
He was very popular with the kids here, but most adults found him too much.
I support and agree with his conservation work he was doing, and I like his drive and determination. I dont like the way the media attacked him when he was feeding a croc with his son. I think it was a media sensation over a bad camera angle.
He was very tallented and knowledgable with lots of drive and it is sad that he is gone.

FYI:
As to our gun laws, our government banned and limited quite a few of our guns, but they are not all illegal. They are however harder to own, and more of a hassle to keep on owning. There are quite a few restrictions like, Semi Auto is now banned, there is only 5 round max allowed in the mag etc.
They got rid of all the registered firearms that didnot meet the new laws, but most of the unregistered firearms didnt get touched.
They did this to protect us or so they said, and now that nobody can defend themselves and some types of crime has gone up, they want to introduce more restrictions and expand the ban to include other firearms that wasnt included in the previous ban.
So there are still some guns here and not completely banned like some of you think.
PS this was for you info, so dont turn this thread into a gun/political debate.

Sorry to have given my own comment on Steve in a post of my own elsewhere, -I just missed this thread, -and the meaning of "Crikey", -here. I had thot he said "Croc" or something. [color:"black"] [/color] [email]Chris Kavanaugh[/email]