Specialists draft anti-slavery bill which they hope MPs will support

A team of modern slavery and legal experts has drafted an anti-slavery law for New Zealand, in the hope it will be supported by MPs.

The definition of modern slavery in the bill covers exploitative or forced labour, child labour, debt bondage and trafficking.

The proposed legislation would require companies with a revenue of more than $50 million to report on any risks in their supply chains.

The Combatting Trafficking in Persons and Modern Day Forms of Slavery Bill was released on Thursday by the Modern Slavery and Trafficking Expert Practitioners Group (MSTEP), which includes criminal and regulatory barrister Jacob Parry, ANZ's ESG lead Rebecca Kingi, and World Vision's head of advocacy and justice Rebekah Armstrong.

In a statement, the group said the bill provided "a comprehensive framework to enhance enforcement, protect victims, and establish a reporting requirement for New Zealand companies so that they disclose actions to address and mitigate modern slavery in their operations and supply chains".

Armstrong said they believed legislation would help to address some of the modern slavery issues in New Zealand as well as through the country's global supply chains.

"We have done a report that shows that around $8 billion of imports are coming that are related to forced and child labour every year, I think that equates to around $70 per week for New Zealanders."

As well as import issues, there were also modern slavery issues happening on the ground in New Zealand, she said.

If it became law, the $50m threshold would include 1415 New Zealand businesses which was a significant number, she said.

"You've got to recognise that there'll be a down flow effect of this, so these companies will then be requiring the companies that they supply to or supply from to also respect this legislation."

Australia, Canada and the UK all had laws which had a similar $50m threshold, she said.

If passed the law would require those companies to be transparent and they would have to look at their first tier suppliers to understand whether there were risks of modern slavery, she said.

"Whether that's in the geography or the product or the contractors that are used if they reach that $50m threshold," she said.

"We've also put in a requirement in this law where high risk entities could be named by the regulator, so for example if you are company that is importing product, particularly maybe from Xing Xang which is an area which has high levels of state-enforced labour then there would be more scrutiny that you would have to identify and mitigate those risks of modern slavery in your supply chain through a reporting mechanism, a modern slavery statement."

Under the proposed law companies would be required to list on a public register which could be viewed by members of the public and there would also be penalties for non-compliance, she said.

Armstrong said the onus for providing compliant products should be on businesses.

"The consumers need to care and be able to look at a modern slavery register to see what's happening and what companies they do want to buy from."

The law would make businesses responsible for ensuring that they were not profiting from the exploitation of others, particularly children and those in enforced labour, she said.

"It's going to change the way that people do business because they're going to have to have that level of scrutiny across their supply chains ensuring that human rights and labour practices are upheld."

In terms of getting the bill across the line in Parliament, Armstrong said there had been a change to standing order rules which said "if you have 61 non-executive members of parliament to endorse a bill it can go across the first reading without being pulled from the ballot".

The Labour Party has said it would support the bill, but National now needed to produce a private members bill or a joint private members bill to get it over the line, she said.

In a statement, Labour's workplace relations and safety spokesperson Camilla Belich said the bill set out "clear steps for New Zealand to take a stand against modern slavery" and it was "well overdue".

She urged Prime Minister Christopher Luxon "to walk the talk and support" the legislation.

Armstrong was hopeful that National would get behind it.

"We know that this is a real priority for the National government because of some of our free trade agreements that have requirements around modern slavery provisions in them, but also because the prime minister has indicated that this is a really important issue for him personally."

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