LETTERS
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday July 29, 2009
Ruthless exploiters makemockery of free tradeThere are chronic flaws and inconsistencies in the free trade ideology, and your editorial ("Australia as a sheltered workshop", July 27) fails to acknowledge them. International trade is meant to bring benefits by way of comparative advantage. But few would suggest that labour exploitation, the plunder of endangered resources, a licence to pollute or deliberate currency devaluation should qualify as a genuine comparative advantage.It is easy to say that Australian companies are "capable of competing with the best the world can offer". In reality they are competing with protectionist regimes and ruthless exploiters. They face an unfair disadvantage, and the only protectionism on offer here is the protection that imports enjoy in being exempt from the standards that apply to local producers on labour rights, safety, environmental protection and so on. As a result Australian operations are going offshore, and our balance of trade continues to deteriorate.If balance is to be restored it will be through international agreement on consistent, fair trade standards and currency regulation. Abusive editorials about "old shop stewards" and "sheltered workshops" are neither relevant nor helpful.Marco Fante KatoombaIf "Australian companies employing Australian workers are perfectly capable of competing with the best the world can offer", why was Australian manufacturing decimated from the Whitlam era onwards, after free trade agreements were signed? Our workers dared to demand a decent living wage, so their jobs went offshore to "developing" countries, which had a far greater ability to exploit their workers.Now Australian industries cannot compete by paying Australians a decent wage, so they move the factory to China or Indonesia, where governments sanction exploitation of the impoverished. Living standards of workers worldwide have been driven down by the most deprived competing for the work. That is the nature of the globalisation embraced by all recent Australian governments. I see moving away from that as moving forward.Doug Burt KyogleThose who say shame on Apple for the conditions in their Chinese factories ("Factory of fear", smh.com.au, July 28) would do well to look around their desks and houses and pick those items not made in China. Everything we buy is cheap because the lives of Chinese workers are cheap. If computers and mobiles of any brand were made in Australia, no one could afford them.Chris Howe Woy WoyRight to speed is wrongIf Peter Copleston (Letters, July 27) is doing something in his bedroom that could kill me and my family, perhaps a "government camera" should be set up in there. It is remarkable that otherwise rational people are upin arms about the effective enforcement of laws designed to protect public safety.An estimated 40 per cent of accidents resulting in casualties are caused by speeding. These are mothers, fathers, children, friends, who are maimed, killed, shattered. The "right" of motorists to flout reasonable speed limits out of unwarranted confidence in their driving prowess is an unreasonable demand on the rest of us.It won't kill you to drive at the speed limit. It increases the chance that you will kill someone if you don't.Alice Crawford NewtownWhether speed causes accidents is hotly disputed by those who prefer to choose their own limits "depending on the conditions". What is not in dispute is that higher speeds cause worse accidents. In city traffic it is generally not possible to go faster than the car in front, and thus public policy can be achieved if even a few drivers can be persuaded to keep to the limit.Copping a couple of penalties really does make most drivers pay better attention. Thus "driving to the conditions" in urban areas comes down to keeping a safe distance behind the compliant drivers.Michael Harrington Bonnet BayBoth ends against the middleRather than specifying a legal voting age, the right to vote should be afforded to young men and women when they achieve the ability to communicate three sentences using the word "like" fewer than 27 times ("Smells like teen spirit at the polling booths", July 28)Carolyn Lockett Coffs HarbourAs a septuagenarian I take issue with Tony Abbott wanting to raise the pension age to 70 ("Abbott to Libs: Revisit workplace laws", smh.com.au, July 27). Most people would be happy for this to happen if MPs came under the same rules. If they lose office they should not be allowed access to their superannuation until they are 70.Kathleen McIntyre ArmidaleA world of differenceJose Ramos-Horta's opinions are coloured more by the experience of his struggle for Timor's independence, alongside the advocates of independence for Western Sahara, than historical reality ("Timor's link to a Saharan struggle", July 22).He says he saw no form of slavery in Sahrawi refugee camps. He visited the Tindouf camps in his capacity as a friendly head of state, escorted by the security of the host country, Algeria, and the Polisario militias. Imagine what would become of anyone who dared say to him: "Excellency, I am treated like a slave by your friends whom you come to support. Please help me get my freedom back."Morocco has had sovereignty over all its territories, including Western Sahara, for 12 centuries. The International Court of Justice found there were legal ties between the two before colonisation by Spain. It is impossible to compare the histories of East Timor and Western Sahara.I understand the suffering of the Sahrawis in the refugee camps, where they are detained by Polisario, guarded heavily in the middle of the desert and used to trap visitors through cunningly orchestrated propaganda.But Ramos-Horta's appeal to support the separation of Western Sahara from Morocco goes against historical and geographical reality. The Sahrawis enjoy well-being within the framework of democratic institutions which represent them in the Moroccan Parliament.Mohamed Mael-Ainin ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco, Canberra
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald
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