My Say

As manager of the Australian Fashion Council (AFC) I wish to respond to the comments of Tommy Clark and AJ Mullen in respect to the Ragtrader article that appeared on the front cover of the June 15 edition.

At the outset let me make it very clear that the AFC and the Council of Textile and Fashion Industries of Australia (TFIA) fully welcome and congratulate the ALP in making a commitment to address the issues around outworkers through providing assistance to the Homeworkers Code of Practice. We have never said anything different since the announcement was made. 

I also wish to note that while the TFIA as a member of the HWCP was aware and supportive of efforts to lobby all political parties on these issues, I was not made aware by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) or other parties involved of the nature of this release despite a recommendation that I be contacted in regards to it.

The purpose of our release was to highlight our view that such funding should be applied to defining the problem as it exists today and not what existed some 13 years ago. An unfortunate fact and one which has been raised with the HWCP directly by a range of companies and associations is that the award system as it applies to the TCF industry is extremely confusing and complex, so much so that even practitioners in the area often struggle to interpret it. 

These flaws such as the unclear definition of an outworker must be addressed to ensure that the HWCP can effectively operate. An application of funding to clearly define the nature or home-based work in Australia in 2007 rather than in 1994 is a necessary first step to effectively addressing the issues of protection of homeworkers and this was the purpose of our release.

The AFC rejects the contentions implied in the letters that it does not support the funding or the protection of outworkers. The fact is that the bulk of the industry we speak to want to produce products in Australia within the laws as they apply but this is made difficult when out of date statistics are used which intentionally or unintentionally attack the very companies seeking to operate within the Australian market. 

Any exploitation of home-based workers is disgraceful and should be stopped but does the industry need to be painted as one which, if we take the comments of Fairwear and others, exploits over 300,000 workers by paying them less than $4 a day. We and other stakeholders know that this is an exaggeration of the real issue and one which damages the legitimate industry in the eyes of governments and the community.

The HWCP has been hamstrung to an extent by a lack of funding and the $4 million promised by the ALP will definitely help address this.

Our comments represent our view as a stakeholder to the debate on how it could be used. If we can address the fundamentals and speak of the problem as it exists now then we are considerably closer to achieving a system which protects home-based workers, designers and manufacturers to the benefit of the Australian industry.