Gary Shaw

But how significant really is this bill? For instance, 97% of our solar panels are made using slave labour. This bill isn't going to stop them coming into the country. This is not a restriction on modern day slavery. This is a requirement for some businesses to produce a report.

Plus, slave labour's already illegal in New Zealand, so will this bill change anything when it comes to such criminal activity here? More on that later. But in terms of the way the legislation's coming into being, it is hugely significant.

Let's hope. What would have been like behind the scenes? I mean, do Fleming and Belich have a particular gift with Gab or lots of friends or, you know, were they instrumental in getting this across or was it the actual issue?

at a time when, you know, we seem to be in a more politically charged and polarised environment is no small feat. OK, well, let's talk about the bill more broadly, because I think people might look at a headline saying, you know, Human Slavery Bill and think, surely human slavery is banned in New Zealand already. But we are not really talking about what happens in New Zealand here, are we?

It doesn't matter where it is, whether it's in an orchard in Alexandra in New Zealand or, you know, in a factory in Southeast Asia. This is Gary Shaw, who was on the Modern Slavery Leadership Advisory Group before Workplace Relations Minister Brooke Van Velden deemed the issue not a priority and disbanded it.

Gary had a career in policing, then spent eight years working for an international human rights organisation as an investigator, going undercover inside criminal organisations trafficking women and children. For the last decade, he's been working with businesses and government, helping them to make a difference on modern slavery issues.

to reframe it in some way and make it actually effective. OK. I want to pick you up on what you said at first, is that there was a lot of evidence that all this did was create extra compliance, because this is ACT's objection to it and why they voted against it. The net result will be that some consultants will go along to these businesses and say, OK,

So how many businesses are there in New Zealand with an annual consolidated revenue of more than $100 million a year that would be affected by this legislation? Well, quite a few, 978 according to Stats NZ figures from 2024.

World Vision, which has been behind the push for this for years and drafted a first consensus of the Modern Slavery Bill, wanted the financial threshold to be $50 million, which would have caught 1,200 more businesses. Some more numbers for you. World Vision says New Zealand households spend around $77 a week on goods implicated in modern slavery, including electronics and coffee.

We imported almost $8 billion in what they call risky goods in 2022 from 39 countries known to use forced or child labour. Here's the organisation's Rebecca Armstrong from a Checkpoint interview last year. We have no requirement on companies to share this information with us. We can do our own research, but it's difficult. The obligation really should be on the business to show that their supply chains and their operations are

This bill, just to be clear, has nothing to do with any issues within New Zealand about modern slavery. Like, you know, there's estimated, what, 8,000 people are estimated to be in modern slavery inside New Zealand. This is not to do with that.

That's it for today. The Detail is a Newsroom production supported by RNZ and New Zealand On Air. This episode was engineered by Mark Chesterman and produced by Sharon Brick-Halley and Shalise Tansey. Thanks to Sam Sachdeva and Gary Shaw. I'm Alexia Russell. Mā te wā.