Peg Putt: We will not be gagged ... 4

Pic*: Jenny Weber, left and Peg Putt during an earlier trip to Japan to inform markets of their positition.

Markets For Change today stood by their campaigns to inform consumers and customer companies of the environmental credentials of Australian products, in the face of reports that the Australian government may seek to restrict them from giving consumers a voice.

“Environmentally aware consumers are increasingly demanding the highest eco-credentials for the things they buy and the companies that sell into this market are seeking third party information about the claims made to them by producers.

“We have found that simply reporting the truth about the origins of forest products that were sold to Japanese companies with misleading descriptions has been sufficient for them to demand better environmental credentials in the product they buy,” said Markets For Change CEO Peg Putt.

“This encourages sales of environmentally sound product and gives an incentive for those selling forest destruction to lift their game to stay in the market, and that’s our aim.”

“The claptrap reported in the media …

The Australian: CONSERVATION groups seeking boycotts of products linked to alleged poor environmental practices may soon be liable for prosecution under consumer law. The move, which could severely hamper market-based campaigns by groups such as Markets for Change and GetUp!, is to be pursued by the Abbott government. Parliamentary secretary for agriculture Richard Colbeck told The Australian the move would prevent green groups from holding companies to ransom in their markets. “We’ll be looking at the way some of the environmental groups work because we are very concerned about some of the activities they conduct in the markets,” Senator Colbeck said. “They have exemptions for secondary boycott activities under the Consumer and Competition Act. We are going to have a complete review of the act.

… claiming a vendetta on our part seems more accurately applied to those seeking to silence our information campaign.”

“Trying to gag us is swimming against the tide of public concern over the social and environmental characteristics of the product they buy and seeks to muzzle us in the same way as the Gunns 20 court case also sought, unsuccessfully, to muzzle forest campaigners,” she said.

“Do members of the government also want to prevent shoppers being informed about unsafe sweatshop conditions in which clothing is produced and to stop them taking action by refusing to buy such product? It’s the same thing we do, on the environmental side.”

Markets For Change successfully established relationships in Japan and the UK with customer companies of Ta Ann Tasmania product, and were able to give precise chain of custody advice about where the logs came from in the high conservation value forests of Tasmania. The customer companies had been misled into believing they were buying ‘eco’ wood from plantations.

We also highlighted that wood from endangered koala habitat in northern NSW was being used to make Harvey Norman’s Naturally Australian flooring line, and the production facility has since ceased operation in Murwillambah.

Markets For Change is a market-focussed eNGO with a mission to drive responsible industry practices through an informed public and market place.

• Wilderness Society: Gagging free information will hurt business

• Wilderness Society: Gagging free information will hurt business

• Christine Milne: Abbott will trash Australia’s environmental icons

• Australian Greens leadership ballot re-elects Christine Milne and Adam Bandt

• Nick McKim: Greens move to restore MP numbers

• Moriarty, in Comments: I too saw the report with the timberworker saying that the time had come to ‘finish with free speech’ and thought that at least his comment isn’t dressed up in the obfuscaton and distraction contained in those of his masters. The same news broadcast showed someone in military uniform announcing in a press release that refugee policy is a ‘military operation’ – I double checked to make sure this was a report from Australia – not a country I had previously associated the military fronting our politics. We’re at war with refugees? At the same time a public servant in the ACT has just been informed by the courts that public servants in Australia do not have ‘freedom of political communication’ (whether at work or not). I know it’s considered trite and somehwat unfashionable (and why would that be?) to invoke Godwin’s law, but when the shoe fits …

• George Harris: Boycott removal stops bullying not free speech

• What Ross Hampton, CEO Australian Forests Products Assocation told Richard Colbeck

• Tom Ellison, in Comments: I find it bizarre that a political party supposedly based on free market ideals would even contemplate legislation aimed at protecting foreign corporations at the expense of locally owned and operated small business. Any analysis of the economics of the handful of companies that would enjoy protection from criticism would confirm that they are a net drain on Tasmania, not a contributor. An economic recovery in Tasmania will be built on nurturing creative and productive entrepreneurs, not building a protective fence for the Ta Anns of this world. We seem to be aiming for a dumbed-down population happy to work for low wages for foreign investors.

• And if you object to being gagged, sign this online petition, here