Last year Oxfam Australia had to fight allegations of misleading or deceptive conduct under the Trade Practices Act over its Fairtrade campaign.
Two Melbourne free trade academics - Tim Wilson, a research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, and Sinclair Davidson, professor of institutional economics at RMIT University - lodged an official complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) after the Financial Times reported that Fairtrade coffee beans were being "picked by workers paid below minimum wage".
However the ACCC dismissed the complaint saying an analysis of Fairtrade was outside its jurisdiction.
Jeff Atkinson, Oxfam Australia's advocate for fairer trade policies, says he is not convinced the claims are true. Under Fairtrade certification worker conditions are meant to be independently checked, so at worst the allegations represent a breakdown in the monitoring process.
The criticism from Wilson and Davidson really centres on the way the global Fairtrade certification body in Germany fixes the market price, which they see as "unsustainable". Under Fairtrade, small-scale producers in developing countries are paid a fixed price for crops, such as coffee. A premium is paid to help fund development.
"We're actually much more concerned about the fact that Fairtrade as a system does not achieve the best interests of people in the developing world as free trade does," Mr Wilson told The Age after the ACCC's finding. "We would like Oxfam to abandon its campaign for Fairtrade and recognise that free trade actually lifts billions of people out of poverty."
Fairtrade comes under fire from both ends of the economic spectrum - the free traders and the anti-globalisation left.
For the far left, the sight of global brands like Starbucks marketing themselves as Fairtrade demonstrates that a system once heralded as an alternative trade movement has been corrupted by the capitalist profit motive.
In contrast, free traders say Fairtrade's guarantee of a premium undermines a community's incentive to diversify.
Fairtrade advocates argue their system is market-driven and there is no evidence it restricts diversification.
Nevertheless, Bronwyn Darlington from Rise Up Productions says it is important that consumers realise that there is "fair trade" and "fairer trade".
"It is important you look for a producer that is working with a reputable community development organisation," she says.
"The criticisms are not relevant in our case because we accept the fact that there is a Fair Trade premium and focus on the community development aspects."
Jeff Atkinson from Oxfam says it's also important not to set up a false dichotomy between Fairtrade and free trade.
He believes the main legitimate criticism of Fairtrade is that it can't absorb all the farmers who want to be part of the system.
"Oxfam sees Fairtrade as a stop-gap measure" we don't think Fairtrade certification is the complete answer. Oxfam's main thrust is to negotiate fairer trade deals through the World Trade Organization."
The reality is that world trade is far from free. "The current international trade regime is like a playground with no teachers," says John McKinnon, TEAR's NSW state coordinator. "Just as in the school playground, a lack of properly enforced rules means that the bullies take over, flaunting rules they impose on others."
After her investigation of the cotton industry, Bronwyn Darlington from Rise Up Productions agrees, saying she feels increasingly frustrated by the "cold" arguments of economic rationalists who await a utopia that never comes. Cotton producers in the developing world need some immediate respite, she says. "The entire cotton market is distorted by tariffs in the developed world."
Handouts to the US cotton industry have lowered the world price, causing extraordinary hardship to producers in the developing world.
"I was so struck by the greed…Before I began this journey, I had no idea of the sadness I would find meeting people who had been abused along the supply chain," she says. "They suffer for fashion products we don't even cherish… that we just discard without a second thought."
"In Chennai, I had a chance to sit with women in the slums [who produce fabric]. I saw how much they love their kids. But no matter how hard they worked they still could not feed their children adequately. It took such a little shift on the price we were asking to change whole lives…"
Bronwyn's investigation of the fashion supply chain is not an isolated example. In his 2003 book Globalisation, Vinoth Ramachandra, Secretary for Social Dialogue for the International Federation of Evangelical Students (IFES), examined the impact of Western tariff and subsidy regimes. Between them, American and European governments subsidise their farmers by a massive $350 billion a year - six times what they give as foreign "aid'. Their agricultural surpluses flood cheaply into poor countries, depress world prices and undermine local farming.
For Ramachandra, who is keynote speaker at TEAR's National Conference, the Bible offers a critique: "Economic growth, trade, investment and productivity are not ends in themselves but a means towards human flourishing and, ultimately, glorifying God".
John McKinnon from TEAR says this means Fairtrade can be "a challenge to the Baals of our time… Passive cooperation with the world's methods is not obedience to Christ".
