Greens call for proper funding to combat modern slavery in NSW procurement

Today in Parliament, Abigail contributed to a debate supporting best practice labour standards in government contracts and procurement, and moved an amendment calling for additional funding to the Anti-slavery Commission to ensure proper enforcement of the Modern Slavery Act 2018, addressing concerns over insufficient resources for monitoring supply chains.

Abigail said:

On behalf of The Greens, I indicate that we will support this motion, with the amendments moved by the Minister. I am glad we all agree now on the importance of ensuring best practice labour standards throughout procurement supply chains. That is a good place for us all to be in. I move:

That the question be amended by inserting after paragraph (3):

(4) That this House further calls on the Government to provide additional funding towards the Anti-slavery Commission's monitoring functions under the Modern Slavery Act 2018.

This issue was discussed in the Standing Committee on Social Issues procurement inquiry. In fact, I moved an amendment to try to secure more resourcing—or at least a recommendation for more resourcing—for the Anti‑slavery Commissioner. I was supported in that by everyone except for the Labor members, unfortunately. It is not enough to say the words and to change the law if it cannot be enforced. If it cannot be enforced because the resources are not available, then it is not worth the paper that the words are written on. I am looking at a letter that was written to the Hon. Dr Sarah Kaine in her capacity as chair of the Standing Committee on Social Issues by the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner. He wrote:

As we have previously discussed, under arrangements approved by the previous Government, and not yet revisited by the current Government, my team currently has access to less than 1.0 FTE staff to conduct our monitoring functions, spread across myself and two other team members. With this we are expected to monitor more than 420 agencies' annual reporting under the Modern Slavery Act 2018 (NSW).

He continued:

In late 2022 and early 2023 I provided modelling to the NSW Department of Communities and Justice, out of whose budget my work is funded, suggesting that by the second half of 2024 we would likely need around 10 to 15 personnel to satisfy our statutory monitoring functions.

It is all well and good to talk about procurement rules and best practice standards to ensure that we do not end up with modern slavery in our procurement supply chain, but I do not see how we can do that without adequately resourcing the Anti-slavery Commissioner. That is the reason for moving that amendment. Other than that, we support the motion.

Abigail's amendment was negatived.

Read the full debate in Hansard here.

19 March 2025

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Greens call for proper funding to combat modern slavery in NSW procurement

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