Wednesday, 2 August 2023

Modern slavery

Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:54): (347) My adjournment matter is for the Attorney-General Minister Symes. In Australia today tens of thousands of people are experiencing modern slavery. These exploitative practices cruelly and unjustly undermine personal freedoms. They can include human trafficking, slavery, forced labour and child labour. We do have a national action plan for a federal modern slavery act to address modern slavery in a global supply chain; however, there is more work to be done. In Melbourne just last year a healthcare worker raised the alarm to authorities after noticing a woman was showing signs of human trafficking. This action resulted in a couple being charged with modern-day slavery offences. Clearly it is still an issue in Victoria.

Other states have taken steps to strengthen their legislation in this area, particularly with respect to expanding reporting options and supports. For example, in New South Wales they introduced their own modern slavery act. This act establishes an anti-slavery commissioner and reporting obligations for certain commercial organisations, bans goods linked to modern slavery in procurement processes involving government agencies, equips healthcare workers to report modern slavery incidents and establishes a hotline dedicated to collecting reports of incidents. Advocates have encouraged other Australian jurisdictions to adopt similar measures.

The action I seek is that the Attorney-General take a more proactive approach to help prevent modern slavery; consider whether we can improve measures to identify and support survivors and help community members report modern slavery incidents; and consider introducing our own anti-slavery commissioner.