Today Abigail passed a notice of motion in Parliament calling on the NSW Government to commit to providing the Office of the NSW Anti-Slavery Commissioner with the resources it needs to carry out is statutory duties and meet rising demand.

Abigail said:

I move:

(1) That this House notes that:

• the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner is an independent statutory office holder established to advocate for and promote systemic and individual action to combat modern slavery, raise community awareness of modern slavery, support businesses in addressing supply chain risks, consult with victim-survivors with lived experience of modern slavery and make recommendations to government on key issues;
• the Office of the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner receives, on average, four reports of slavery each week through the 1800 FREEDOM hotline;
• in a budget estimates hearing on Thursday 28 August 2025, NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner Dr James Cockayne told the committee that the office had to make the difficult decision at the beginning of 2025 to stop operating the hotline on a 24/7 arrangement due to a lack of resourcing, saying that a 24/7 reporting arrangement is "very important for vulnerable workers who may be trapped on the factory floor or in the fields during working hours. We had to move back to a business hours reporting arrangement … the reason for that was simply that we have only three of us—myself included—who part-time work on the hotline. We didn't have the resources to pay for anyone, except myself, because I have executive pay arrangements and I don't receive overtime. We didn't have the resources to pay for other staff to take matters after hours, so I was taking all after-hours calls and it became unsustainable, frankly, from a matter of burnout. We don't have enough personnel operating this hotline. We can't meet demand at the moment";
• Dr Cockayne also told the budget estimates committee on Thursday 28 August 2025 that despite not being advertised particularly widely, the hotline has seen a steady increase in demand since it began operating, saying that "if we were to properly advertise this hotline, the demand would likely go through the roof and we would not be able to adequately support the people coming forward for support and assistance";
• Dr Cockayne makes the following assertions in the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner's 2023-2024 annual report:
  • "the complex requests for support and referral that we now receive – some of which involve active connections to organised crime, ongoing domestic violence matters, complex medical situations, and complex legal and immigration situations – clearly warrant more dedicated staff time";
  • "while my staff do everything we can to provide requested assistance and support, it is proving very difficult to sustainably deliver the function required by the Act, at current staffing levels, and without significant risks of staff burnout";
  • "this lack of resources is a clear constraint on our ability to provide New South Wales Government agencies the support they are seeking to meet their statutory obligations";
  • "more than half of surveyed government agencies have indicated a desire to receive support to train frontline staff. Yet the Office currently has no staff resources that we can dedicate to training frontline workers"; and
  • "at present the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner receives no dedicated funding in the NSW Budget Papers. The New South Wales Government should, starting in the FY2025–2026 Budget, give the Anti‑slavery Commissioner a dedicated and independent funding allocation".
• the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner is not the first statutory office holder to put on the record the Government's failure to adequately fund it to perform its statutory duties: the Ageing and Disability Commissioner has repeatedly and consistently asserted that the Government continues to provide the commission with such an inadequate and unsustainable budget that it was essentially set up to fail, and the NSW Electoral Commission has consistently called for an increase in funding from the Government in order to fulfil its most basic statutory obligations.

(2) That this House recognises the important role that statutory office holders such as the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner play, and thanks the Anti-slavery Commissioner and his office for their work in overseeing public procurement and combatting modern slavery in New South Wales.

(3) That this House calls on the Government to commit to providing the Office of the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner with the resources it needs to carry out its statutory duties and meet rising demand.

Motion agreed to.

Read the transcript in Hansard here.

14 October 2025