Australian government at work You will love this one, I haven't stopped laughing For those of you who have never travelled to the country , cattle guards are horizontal steel rails placed at fence openings, in dug-out places in the roads adjacent to highways (sometimes across highways), to prevent cattle from crossing over that area. For some reason the cattle will not step on the "guards," probably because they fear getting their feet caught between the rails.
In 2008, Kevin Rudd received and was reading a report that there were over 10,000 cattle guards over main roads in NSW & Queensland. Graziers had protested his proposed changes in grazing policies, so he ordered the Minister to fire half of the cattle guards immediately!!
Before the Minister could respond and presumably try to straighten him out, Minister for Employment Julia Gillard, intervened with a request that before any cattle guards were fired, they be given six months of retraining.
