James5

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FUD from the right in this article in the Australian. Tim Wilson, from the Institute of Public Affairs, and Sinclair Davidson, an economics professor from RMIT, have actually asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to look into Oxfam. They reckon Oxfam is guilty of “misleading or deceptive conduct” due to their claims that fairtrade helps to lift coffee farmers out of poverty. Tim and Sinclair say producers are been unfairly charged thousands of dollars to become certified and that some labourers are being paid “below minimum wage”.

Where to begin with this rubbish? Obviously they are just trying to make a big scene by complaining to the ACCC, but why are they wasting Oxfam’s time with this? Yes it does cost money to become a certified farmer - this pays for people to perform inspections and make sure everything is fair - but in my (limited) encounters with coffee/cocoa farmers this hasn’t even been brought up as an issue. To say the labourers are being paid “below minimum wage” means almost nothing compared with the situation of non-certified farms - fairtrade at least guarantees labour rights and other minimum standards. It’s definitely not a dream job being a coffee farmer, but at least fairtrade makes things a little bit better.

Their main argument is that based on their neo-liberal assumptions free trade is the only ’sustainable’ answer to the coffee crisis, ignoring the very real positive impacts fairtrade products have had around the world. “Sustainable” free trade means poor farmers remain poor and rich corporations get richer. Fairtrade is a carefully thought out system of providing a fair price and minimum guarantees for produce. Just like in Australia we have minimum wages and other workplace conditions, fairtrade takes this to an international level. The Australian economy seems to be doing pretty well even without 100% “free”, unrestrained employment agreements, fairtrade takes relies on these same equitable principles and seems to be doing pretty well.

This sort of rubbish makes me angry, their ideology seems to have overridden their common sense. Hopefully it won’t muddy the waters with all the good media attention fairtrade has received for Fairtrade Fortnight.

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