[Greens-Media] Farmers suffer under free trade deals

[Willis, Katrina (Sen C. Milne)]

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Wednesday, 10 August 2005

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Farmers suffer under free trade deals

Tasmanian farmers and regional communities were bearing the brunt of
government support of bilateral free trade deals, Australian Greens
Senator for Tasmania Christine Milne said today.

Senator Milne, who grew up on a dairy farm in Tasmania's north-west,
joined the district's farmers who took their tractors to the streets in
the campaign against a polluting pulp mill at Wesley Vale in the 1980s.

Today she again joined the farmers in their protest against unfair
competition from imported fresh and processed fruit and vegetables,
arriving at Parliament House in a tractor to deliver her first speech.

"These Tasmanian farmers and the processing workers who depend on their
ability to stay on the land and produce high quality food are the human
face of the free trade agreements," Senator Milne told parliament.

"They are the victims of globalisation and the downward pressure on
prices, wages, human rights and environmental protection that such
agreements have wrought on this nation.

"...As one of the young farmers said to me this morning, it's about
values."

The Greens opposed the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement and oppose the
proposed bilateral agreement with China, in favour of multilateral
agreements that respect fair wages and prices, and allow countries to
protect the environment.

In her first speech Senator Milne also called for a full public debate
about values in Australia.

"There has been a concerted effort to quarantine the values debate to
matters of private and personal morality, deemed family values, to avoid
a values debate on public economic and social policy," Senator Milne
said.

"The prosperity gospel has been adopted to legitimise consumerism and
materialism, to advance the economic rationalist agenda of conservative
governments and trans-national corporations.

"Even the notion of 'family values' is confined to a narrow range of
values to suit a particular political agenda. Where I grew up, honesty,
kindness, respect, justice, fairness, freedom, compassion, tolerance,
love and forgiveness where family values. Discrimination and
vilification of minorities, lying, misrepresentation and meanness of
spirit were not family values."

 Also in her speech, Senator Milne:

	*	Acknowledged the insight that Indigenous Australians had
provided into the concept of country, and the importance of progressing
reconciliation with Indigenous peoples;

	*	Recognised that all groups and individuals need to
contribute to addressing the environmental challenges Australia faces
domestically and as part of the international community, including
climate change, biosecurity and sustainable development; and

	*	Paid tribute to the work of the first green politicians,
from the United Tasmania Group, who forged the path for green
parliamentary representation.

"At the outset, it was a politics of values, a new ethic. It recognised
that at the same time we are citizens of local communities, nation state
and one world in which the local and global are interconnected," Senator
Milne said. 

"It is a politics dedicated to bringing forth a sustainable society
based on a respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice,
and a culture of peace and participatory democracy. These values
underpin the Greens vision of reconciliation between humans and the
natural world."

As part of the expanded, four-member Greens Senate team Senator Milne
will work with the Australian community to find solutions that
Australians want to live with.

"If fear, indifference and greed can have such powerful ramifications,
imagine what hope, compassion and generosity might do for Australia and
for the world," Senator Milne said.


Contact: Katrina Willis 0437 587 562 or 02 6277 3063

Katrina Willis
Adviser
Office of Senator Christine Milne
Ph: 03 6234 4566
0437 587562
Fax: 03 6234 2144
www.greens.org.au