mhaze,

Since the topic was started by ttbn, and not YOU, unless you and ttbn are one in the same, being as anti Chinese as you are I thought you might have wanted to go further than simply a ban on solar panels, with an Australian version of 'The Uyghur Forced Labour Protection Act'. As the opening post says it based on suspicion and not face, maybe we should invoke lots of 'The (insert country name) Forced Labour Protection Act'. We have "suspicions" galore that forced/slave labour is being used in many countries to produce good for the Australian market. Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Turkey etc, lots of them, in fact. If you shop in K-mart for example there's every likelihood based on suspicions that you are purchasing goods produced in third world countries by forced/slave labour. To be consistent what do you think we should do about those countries? I know wait for our orders from America, right.

Well we've gone from there is no genocide to sanctions won't stop the genocide so why try.

The idea is to sanction all products that come out of Xinjiang unless they can be shown to not be products of slave labour. This won't make any real difference in dissuading the Han from destroying the Uighurs but it will keep the issue at the forefront of international affairs and show the world the true nature of the CCP.

So not just solar panels but other products eg almost all cotton products from China are made by slave labour.

mhaze,

There is evidence of slave labour being used in Bangladesh to produce cheap garments for the Australian market. What do you suggest we do? This is nothing new, its been going on with our knowledge for years.

Think about cadbury chocolate.
We buy thousands of tons of the stuff.
Where do you think it comes from?
Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, India and Brazil.

How much do you think those people get paid?
http://www.fairtrade.net/news/new-study-shows-higher-incomes-for-fairtrade-cocoa-farmers

"The study, published today by Fairtrade and available here, found that the average annual Ivorian cocoa farmer household income grew from $2,670 USD in 2016/17 to $4,937 USD in 2020/21, an increase of 85% driven, in part, by increased revenue from cocoa sales and diversification through in-kind and off-farm incomes. In addition, a significant number of Ivorian cocoa farmers have moved out of extreme poverty with 61% of the farmers’ households in the current study living above the extreme poverty line, as compared to 42% based on data collected in 2016/17 and published in 2018."

- Average Ivory Coast cocoa farmer household income US$5000 per year.
What do you think their hourly rate is? 50c an hour?

We couldn't enjoy all the nice things we have in Australia if we had to pay Australian wages to have them.
Some might say it's good business, but it's still built on the exploitation of others.

Maybe we should sanction Cadbury, and Kmart as well for daring to sell us all good quality Bangladeshi garments everyone is wearing.
- We might have to close down half the country

Hi AC,

Was there not a kerfuffle a few years back when it was suggested that Australian businesses pay and extra 10 cents towards garment piece workers in Asia, producing fashion for the high end market in Australia. If I recall rightly good old Solly Lew (the same Solomon Lew who refused to pay rent during Covid) refused the request for his 'Myer' stores (the same stores he didn't want to pay rent for during Covid).

"Solomon Lew is an Australian businessman. His principal commercial activities involve importing apparel, toys and other goods into Australia from China and investments, mainly in retail companies."

Paul,

For starters, China has just about the worst wealth distribution in the world. The Chinese majority:

1 Earns far less than the "average"
2 Works long hours with no overtime,
3 Has almost no protection from labour laws
4 Gets no unemployment insurance
5 Gets no pension
6 Gets little to no free health care
7 Faces the cost of buying a house of 40yrs salary,
8 Faces constant censorship and no free speech
9 Faces arbitrary arrest and courts that assume guilt

And with India's growth rate now far higher than China's India's average income will in the near future exceed China's.