Just Kai has been lobbying for a Modern Slavery Act for Aotearoa New Zealand since 2019, so we’re delighted a Modern Slavery Bill has passed its first reading and is off to the Education and Workforce Committee.

Below is our submission on the Bill. If you’d like to submit on the Bill yourself, you can:

  • support Tearfund’s group submission OR
  • support World Vision’s group submission OR
  • submit to Parliament directly (this is also what you’ll need to do if you wish to tell the committee that you support our submission - that statement can be your whole submission, or part of a larger submission).

Here’s what we’ve submitted:

I am writing in support of the Modern Slavery Bill.

I am the founder of Just Kai, a Kiwi organisation that exists to raise awareness of forced and child labour in the supply chains of our food, and to identify and promote brands and products with slave-free supply chains.

In my research work for Just Kai I have already made extensive use of Modern Slavery statements or reports required under legislation from California, the UK and Australia. These reports have made it much easier to identify brands and companies that are making realistic efforts to maintain a slave-free supply chain. I have also repeatedly noticed that companies in New Zealand are making less effort in this regard than equivalent Australian companies. I feel this is primarily due to the fact that Australian companies are required to report on these matters and so put more effort into ensuring they have something to say that they can be proud of.

I am thus delighted that New Zealand is moving towards similar legislation. I expect it will make it easier for conscious consumers to identify products with reduced risk of slavery in their supply chains, and will also increase the effort companies put into becoming slave-free. These changes will make it less economic for people to enslave others to make the goods we buy (as there will be fewer companies willing to source from such suppliers), thus reducing the risks for vulnerable people to be caught in slavery. In addition, currently companies can save money by purchasing from suppliers that keep their own costs down by enslaving people. I expect that this legislation will level the playing field, meaning that companies that pay people properly will not be disadvantaged, so more companies will make this choice. This, again, will reduce the risks of people being trapped into slavery.

In order to increase the effectiveness of this legislation, I recommend two changes.

Guidance on risks

I recommend that the reporting requirements be strengthened by giving reporting entities more guidance on the risks of Modern Slavery in their supply chains. The bill as written requires them to “report on their actions to identify, prevent, mitigate, and remediate modern slavery incidents occurring within their operations and supply chains” (Section 3.1.a); and that their report includes a “description of any known or anticipated risks of modern slavery” (Section 9.2.c) and the actions they have taken to mitigate those risks (Section 9.2.d).

The Australian legislation has similar requirements. As a result I have read Modern Slavery Act reports where companies import products at very high risk of Modern Slavery (e.g. cotton from Xin Jiang in China) and yet say that, in their assessment there is no risk of Modern Slavery so they have done nothing to mitigate this risk.

Our legislation needs to require reporting entities to do realistic risk assessments. For this reason, Just Kai strongly supports World Vision’s statement that:

The Government should establish a dedicated body or function to identify high-risk areas and provide clear guidance and practical support to businesses. This would help organisations better understand where risks exist and how to prevent and respond to them effectively. 

Report on main website

The bill as written requires that “A reporting entity must publish a copy of each of its modern slavery statements by making them available for public inspection, free of charge, on an internet site maintained by the entity.” (Section 10.1). This seems to me to be highly open to abuse. It is trivial to establish and maintain an internet site, so it would be easy for a an entity which feels its Modern Slavery Statement paints it in a poor light to set up a separate internet site specifically for the purpose of publishing its statement(s). Such reports would be unlikely to be found by the public, who would go to the entity’s main site, find no report, and assume they did not meet the threshold to be required to report. I certainly have never gone looking for a report on a special internet site when I failed to find one on the main one, nor have I generally gone to the official registers to find such reports.

In order for people to be able to freely access the statements, they need to be on the existing, primary, public-facing website of the entity concerned – ideally linked in a straightforward manner from the landing page.

I am uncertain how the legislation can ensure this is done, but I trust that those with more understanding of both the law and the internet can suggest a good solution.

Thank you for your consideration of these comments. I am so pleased to see this legislation coming forward after so many years of work, and look forward to it becoming law soon.