A Fair Go for Fair Trade

This Saturday, May 12th, is World Fair Trade Day, and this year the theme is Kids Need Fair Trade. Joanna has already blogged, at the start of Fair Trade Fortnight on April 28th, about how to find local fair trade coffee in Wellington.

Fair trade kind of sounds like one of those really earnest causes lefties harp on about, but one of the things that has struck me about these campaigns is the slow but steady success. We now have fair trade goods in places other than Trade Aid - some supermarkets, upmarket retailers, and many cafes. Yes, it's still small, but I believe the fact that's this change is growing is significant.

When I was in the UK briefly last year there was a small town* which had started to build a fair trade community, emanating from the local Anglican church. Nickname Pending was quite inspired by this and he's slowly slowly building up a similar concept in his parish. It takes a long time to succeed, but they are already selling a lot of fair trade products within their congregation (including to my pantry) and now they are starting to promote it in the broader community at a low level. This church is quite literally loving their neighbours, even if they aren't quite next door.

Many of us work in offices or similar environments where we could probably push for fair trade coffee** to replace whatever management is currently supplying. It's a small, but real, difference we could make.

Fair trade products might cost us a little more but potentially the benefits to those producing the goods, and their families, is significant. We pride ourselves on being a country that's all about giving people a "fair go," and many New Zealanders say they sincerely believe in treating others as they would wish to be treated ourselves. Buying fair trade goods when possible is an opportunity to walk that talk.

* Unfortunately I forget where but I'll see if I can find it in my journal.

** And tea and hot chocolate. I can personally vouch for the extreme yumminess of the Trade Aid Dark Hot Chocolate.

(Pic Via)

Linky Love - Volume 13

Standard intro - if you have a post of your own, or some else's, that you'd like to highlight please feel free to add it in comments, or to discuss the above posts, or indeed most anything else.

Alas, a blog - Roundup of posts about Gonzales v Carhart - Amp gives us all a link farm all about the recent Supreme Court decision in the US to undermine a woman's right to choose.

Aucklander at Large - Racial predisposition - a@l uncovers some weird theories about the Virginia Tech shooting on the Herald Readers' Views site. Winston Peters would be proud.

Capitalism Bad; Tree Pretty - But we've got a world cup to win! - Maia writes about Sivivatu's discharge without conviction for domestic violence, and why that had more to do with his Silver Fern than anything else.

the gossip - Smashing stuff with the people's hammer - uncovering the radical union activist that is Spongebob Squarepants.

I Blame the Patriarchy - Some notes on revolution - Twisty puts the case that our society is a patriarchy and why it sucks so much.

Joe Hendren - Peaceful WTO protesters win $1 million compensation - Joe has the story that no doubt won't get anywhere near the coverage the original misrepresentations of the so-called "Battle of Seattle".

The Kiwi Herald - TV presenters to multitask - john puts a humourous spin on the lay-offs at TVNZ.

Larvatus Prodeo - Labor's "pragmatic" national industrial relations platform - Guy looks at Australian Labor's possible answer to John Howard's much loathed Workchoices. It looks like Kevin Rudd may have caught NZ (and British) Labour's Third Way disease...

Pandagon - The main downside is it's one more thing to dust - Amanda Marcotte gives her view on the Rapist #1 action figure furore, which is not what I had expected I must admit.

Parrot on Policy - Saving for Retirement: Sorry, too busy paying off debt - Policy Parrot writes about some of the barriers to retirement saving and some ideas to counter them. Good to see student debt on the list of barriers!

Policy Matters - Putting 'public' back into public policy - Grant Duncan discusses the different parties' approaches to these matters and asks for feedback on how we now conceptualise "publicness" in public policy.

Shakesville - Iraq's homosexual communities cries out for help - wkw reports on what sounds like a violent campaign against gays and lesbians, exacerbated by the US Occupation.

WellUrban - Whose lane is it anyway? Tom has an interesting post about public transport developments in Windyton.*

Your Dirty Answers - (no title) - Audra Williams with the pyjamas you never knew you needed. Paul from The Fundy Post, this is for you!

And don't forget, previous volumes of Linky Love (1 - 12) can be found in their own shiny category.

At least

It seems to me, as a NZ leftie, that really there aren't a lot of choices for me at the moment. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there aren't a lot of options I like, politically.

On the right hand I have National, Act, and the general Forces of Darkness who throng around concepts I find anathema. Ideas like low (or no) taxation, privatising state services, selling assets, cutting benefits, and generally advantaging the rich (and priviledged) over all others.

The left palm displays the Labour-led Government, which doesn't exactly set my leftie heart aflame with passion for their policies, or even their principles, but is better than National.

And that seems to be all there is. As far as Government leadership goes there's only National or Marginally Better Than National.

On international relations, I can wicker all I want about Helen Clark's senseless lunch attempt to get a free trade deal with George W* whilst delicately not mentioning the USA's human rights abuses. But I know that John Key and his ilk would probably lick the POTUSA's boots clean after the soup and enthusiastically ask him where he got all those fab ideas for dealing with prisoners by the time the entree was on the table. At least Clark didn't commit us to a stupid war in Iraq.**

On education, I can express my extreme frustration with Labour's approaches to tertiary, secondary, primary and early childhood, but at least I know they are not going to set up direct competition between state schools and encourage the profit motive ahead of all else. There is still a pretence (and possibly in some of the Labour caucus a genuine belief) that education shouldn't be about making money. Unlike another party I could name. At least Labour has significantly increased funding in this Vote and brought special education and kindergarten back into the state sector.

On health, I could vent my spleen about the way Labour-led administrations rely heavily on
the goodwill of those working in the system, but I know they won't gut the public provision of healthcare like National would. And they have given the nurses pay parity, which is A Good Thing, and one that National would certainly not have done.


On the parlous state of our police force, in particular it's attitude to women, the Labour-led government certainly hasn't been as fulsome in its condemnation as I would like, but at least Clark has actually said some critical things. What's the National view on the police? Judging by their membership in the blogosphere the general view in that party might be that this was all about a few rotten eggs and not systematic at all, no siree.

I could go on and on with examples, but you get the drift.***

What this situation means is that Clark and co can rest on their laurels to a certain extent. They know that whatever they do it is unlikely to be as bad as what National would do in the same situation, from the point of view of their supporters and those further to the left. Why bother trying when you've already got a substantial number of votes sewn up, purely because the other option is worse?

(I did warn you I was a bit grumpy and bitter at the moment.)

So what's a leftie to do?



* If Sheriff Howard got a bum deal then what chance have we got? Less chance than a koala in a forest fire methinks.
** Maybe our troops in Afghanistan, that forgotten war, put her off?
***Besides, it's quite hard to pin National down on their exact intentions in government because they so rarely communicate any actual policy. I can only judge them on past performance and general principles, neither of which are in their favour from my point of view.

Selfish reasons to be left

Maia's got a post up about our generation and activism. One of the things that struck me about her post was something I'd never really thought all that much about before, not consciously anyway:

I think individual action is a useless form of protest, because it's only through collectivity that we have any power. But that's not the only problem - not buying clothes made in China, or buying fair trade whatever isn't just uselss - it also frames political action as something you do for other people. I actually ended up agreeing with one of the apathetic people they interviewed when he said - I might get involved if I thought there was something in it for me. If people believe that the only reason you paticipate in poltical protests is personal goodness then we're all screwed.

I'd often thought, in my secret socialist heart, that I was somehow a Bad Leftie for being able to find the selfish angle in most political causes I've ever felt inclined to support. Now I know that I'm not the only one, and that in fact it's probably a necessary part of my motivation.

Here's a few of my more self-serving reasons for supporting various things:

• Free education* - I hope it'll mean less crime (less likelihood that my stuff will get nicked) more educated professionals for me to access (particularly in the health and education sectors), more skilled tradespeople (so I can finally find a plumber), and a more democratic society (so all my blog whinges aren't totally in vain).
• Free healthcare - I'll get sick less often with Other People's Germs, because other people will be sick less as they'll actually go to the doctor, or fill their prescription, or whatever. Also if, Deity Of Your Choice Forbid, I need medical care I'll be able to get it even if I'm down to my last shiny new 5c piece.
• A comprehensive and fair social welfare system - Because one day I could be the person who gets made redundant in a shrinking industry, or finds herself with children and no means to support them, or needs to get away from the bullying boss who makes my life a total misery, or has an illness that just won't go away (oh wait, that last one already happened, nevermind). And because if other people can access this same system then they might be less likely to nick my stuff to get by. (Always this obsession with possessions, my precioussssss, ahem)
• Justice (and thus peace) in the Middle East - Well if nothing else it'll bring the price of the petrol I need down, plus it'll mean that the media can't get away with filling up all their papers and bulletins with foreign footage and actually focus on some local news, and hopefully even some actual political analysis, which I'd really quite like to watch.
• Fair trade - The economy's global and I'd like it immensely if the promotion of fair trade helps to maintain and protect my own wages and conditions. Pretty please.

Ok that's enough selfishness for one post. Must be my purple robot genes in control again.**


* Regarding the "free" part of free education. For future reference, whenever I write the words "free education" you can pretty much guarantee that it's shorthand for the following:
"A fully publically controlled, publically funded and publically owned education system, from early childhood to tertiary and everything in between. Oh and tertiary doesn't just mean university or polytech either."

** Is anybody out there getting my robot gene jokes? Anyone? Where's Xavier when you need him. (Mind you he'd probably tell me they're just not funny). Can you tell I'm on a low sugar diet and starting to go a bit manic. Bah, nevermind.

a tale of two debates - part II

Carrying on from Part I, here's a report on the second debate, held at St Peter's Anglican Church in Pakuranga on Tuesday night.

A much smaller bunch of candidates - Pita Paraone (NZ First), Michael Wood (Labour) and Ian McInnes (United Future) reprised their roles, while Maurice Williamson* (National) and Keith Locke (Greens) joined in. Yep, not a chick in sight on those candidate seats.

The focus of the debate was foreign policy issues. Candidates had five minutes each to talk on the question "Is NZ a good global citizen?" and then there were questions from each of the sponsoring organisations, United Nations Association of NZ, Oxfam and Amnesty International. And then the floor had its chance.

It was an interesting floor actually - much smaller crowd than the previous night, even though it was a bigger venue. I think roughly half the crowd were Labour or National members, the rest were interested not-for-profit types.

The chairing was well done, although he started by reading out potted histories of the candidates that were generally quite dull (BSc in this, Masters in that, likes swimming and reading, blah blah blah). He also stuffed up quite a few bits on Wood's (don't know about the others) but there really wasn't an opportunity to correct him as it was straight into the candidates' speeches, McInnes first.

Locke I found disappointing. I've heard him speak much better, and on the two occassions that he was riled during the evening he was actually very good, but most of the time it was a dull delivery. He certainly knew his stuff though.

As it was a much smaller number of candidates than the previous evening each got to talk for longer, which was good and bad. McInnes seemed unsure of his ground so shoe-horned in things that were only vaguely related to the topic, while Pita Paraone again simply read from the NZ First policy manual. He did seem to loosen up a bit during the questions which was good.

Maurice is a good speaker, no doubt about it, and the fact that he and Wood were mostly one after each other meant that much of the focus was on their interaction. They sparred quite a bit, and Williamson's body language was very anti-Wood, legs crossed almost to the point of turning his body around, not even looking at his rival until quite some way into the evening, etc. The difference in height also made for some strange moments at the podium, as whoever went second had to radically alter the tilt of the microphone.

Moments of interest:
- Paraone said NZ First strongly committed to NZ remaining nuclear-free, and McInnes made the same noises, meaning this would be off the agenda for a first term National Govt (they'll need the time to change public opinion anyway)
- Williamson proudly stated he is an "absolute acolyte" for free trade, and at another point said that labour standards were not necessary in free trade agreements as free trade is enough on its own
- when asked about the attempts by the USA and UK to redefine torture, Williamson made a strange crack about the National caucus being torturous, which he repeated later, and Paraone also tried to get in on the same joke. Seemed like a funny way to get people to vote for your party to me, to imply that being in its caucus is an unpleasant experience.
- Maurice was also absolutely glowing about Don Brash when an audience member pointed out that National have had four different leaders for the last four elections, proclaiming that Brash will be PM for several terms.
- the National and Labour candidates had a scrap over how National worked out their 1991 benefit cuts, with Wood claiming they asked a nutritionist to work out a budget for a diet for the minimum calories needed to survive and then National cut this by a further 10%. Williamson was incensed at this, but I'm pretty sure I saw the evidence on Someone Else's Country (or maybe it was In A Land of Plenty).
- Keith Locke made a point about politicians in the USA being bought by corporates and lobby groups and Williamson was behind him nodding in agreement
- someone in the audience raised an issue about the French building a nuclear power plant in Noumea, but no one else seemed to know what on earth he was on about

It was a good debate and I wish there had been more in attendance. There was quite a lot of hanging around afterwards, with the National and Labour supporters curiously circling each other and getting into arguments about the Exclusive Brethren and petrol prices.

But the one single thing I will always remember from this debate was the hanging in the church which stated boldly:

Do you love me? Feed my sheep

Update: Labour candidate Michael Wood's take on the two debates can be found here.


* Please note that Maurice Williamson Millenium Model differs greatly in appearance from the photograph supplied