Chapter 1: What is the significance of the Modern Slavery Bill in New Zealand?
I move that the Modern Slavery Bill be now read a first time. Madam Speaker, this bill has been the work of many and it has also been many years in getting to this House and getting to the stage of first reading.
Finally, a bill on modern slavery is before Parliament. It passed its first reading on Wednesday night. We did it! The New Zealand Parliament will introduce a modern slavery law because thousands of New Zealanders, NGOs, businesses and investors have demanded change. It took years of petitions, open letters, submissions, reports and relentless advocacy, but the public mandate was undeniable.
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.
It's not far often that National and Labour see eye to eye, but the two parties have joined forces to fast track a law combating modern slavery. Labour's previous attempt went nowhere after the coalition took power because ACT wasn't interested. So in a rare move, National has teamed up with the opposition to get it done. I'm Alexia Russell and today on The Detail, the bipartisan modern slavery bill, what it does and doesn't do.
Sam Sachdeva is Newsroom's Associate Editor based at Parliament and he talks to me about how it came about and what comes next. What will happen now is it will go through a select committee process. The public will have a chance to share their views and whether or not it can get passed all the way through before the election might be a little bit tough given...
We've only got a few months left, I guess, before Parliament needs to rise. But I think there is agreement from both major parties, certainly, and some others, that this is a very worthy issue and something that does need to be addressed. So they've actually managed to hammer out the basics of the bill. They are in agreement on those basic steps.
That's right. It's Kamala Bellich from Labour and Greg Fleming from National. They've been working on this for a few years now actually. I remember talking to Greg in 2024 about this and he was saying that the pair of them were trying to write up something that could get support from both their parties. It took them a while to get to that point. They announced it earlier this year but...
I think they've said, look, here are the things that we are both comfortable with, where we think it will help to reduce the risks of modern slavery in the supply chains of New Zealand businesses, and in theory they think it won't be overly onerous and it will be more of a help than a hindrance. So yeah, it's kind of nice to see that.
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Chapter 2: How does the bipartisan support for the bill impact its progress?
you know, Christian social justice point of view, whereas for Camilla Belich, you know, being part of the Labour Party, very focused on workers' rights and union rights, I think it's kind of in that space, looking after workers and making sure they aren't exploited. So I think they, you know, agree on the fact that this does need to be addressed and there is a common good for New Zealand, but it's kind of nice that they can look at it through different lenses perhaps and arrive at the same conclusion in terms of taking action.
And there's another aspect of this bill that's quite historic, isn't there? The way that it was introduced. Can you talk to us about Standing Order 288? The Rule of 61. It's quite fun, actually. Yeah, this was introduced a few years ago. So for those who don't know, MPs who are not ministers can put bills into a member's ballot, the biscuit tin, as it's called.
informally known and that is drawn every few weeks and there was a view that well actually if you get a bill that is where there's enough agreement and bipartisan support actually you shouldn't have to wait for it to be drawn out of the tin, that it should be able to automatically be put onto the order paper and dealt with in Parliament so
The agreement was that if 61 non-ministers, so normal MPs, if 61 of them supported a bill, then it should be fast-tracked into Parliament for a first reading. And there have been a few different MPs who have tried to do this and have been unsuccessful. So this is quite historic, the fact that you manage to get a large enough majority vote.
And by definition, or almost by definition, if you reach the 61, it means you've got both the government and opposition behind it, because it was hard to get to that any other way. So yeah, it was quite a milestone, and I think there's some hope that maybe this sets a precedent and we can see more MPs following and more bipartisan laws that do get moved ahead with fast.
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?
I think you have to give them a lot of credit because I imagine for each of their parties you might not necessarily want to give your opposition a win. So for Labour, do they really want to have National's name on this and does National want to have Labour's name on it?
Look, I think they both have strengths. I think Greg Fleming is maybe more on the fringe of his party in a sense, if you look at some of his stances and views on things. But the fact that they've managed to do this work and convince their caucus, because it ultimately requires the sign-off of the caucus, so you've got to be able to get all your MPs or enough of them behind you. So I think having them doing that
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?
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Chapter 3: What are the main criticisms of the Modern Slavery Bill?
If you're working in Asia or Africa or something like that, are you doing enough due diligence to make sure that the people who are involved in that supply chain, getting things from raw materials to the finished product, that they are not being exploited and subject to substandard conditions. So the proposal or the bill will create this mandatory reporting regime for companies that earn more than $100 million a year in revenue.
and you'll need to sort of publish these annual reports and say look this is this is what we're doing to to deal with um the risk of modern slavery here are any incidents that we've picked up and so on so it's it's a transparency mechanism as much as anything else and i think the idea is that if you force businesses
to turn their mind to this and say, look, you are going to have to produce these records and we will publish them. So if you are knowingly or unknowingly enabling this, the public will know and they might, you know, act in terms of what they buy as a result. So it's putting a spotlight on it and some sunlight on the issue that I think they hope will help here.
Not everyone is convinced this bill is necessary. The ACT Party voted against it. Here's David Seymour. This is not about slavery or exploitation within New Zealand's borders. That is something that is already illegal. It's in the Crimes Act. The Labour Inspectorate and the police can and do investigate, prosecute and put people in jail for it within New Zealand's borders.
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.
He stresses that the framing and detail of this bill are really important if it's not to become a tick box issue for businesses that doesn't lead to meaningful change. We had the opportunity when the Modern Slavery Leadership Advisory Group was created, I guess that was four or five years ago, to really be a leader in this space globally. The UK, the US to some degree, and Australia had created this.
modern slavery acts but they were independently assessed multiple times and deemed to be at that stage largely ineffective because all they led to was lots of compliance and reporting not necessarily any meaningful change in how we saw this issue and then how we tÄnÄ tÄtahi i tÄtahi i tÄtahi i tÄtahi i tÄtahi i tÄtahi i tÄtahi i tÄtahi i tÄtahi whÄnau, whÄnau, whÄnau, whÄnau
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Chapter 4: How will the bill affect businesses with annual revenues over $100 million?
It's this massive empire that is larger than the four biggest companies in the world combined, but you can meaningfully respond to it in a way that's authentic, that's genuine and that's grounded in the values that we hold to be dear in this country, i.e. freedom, fairness and dignity. It's still called the modern slavery bill though, isn't it? It is at this stage, but time will tell whether we have the opportunity to
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,
Parliament just said you've got to produce a report, we can write one for you. So that was all that will happen. Another cost, more bureaucracy and very little change to anyone's lives. David Seymour saying basically that it's virtual signalling for our trading partners.
Well I certainly don't agree with that and I don't think that's true. The goal of legislation like this is to have greater visibility of those vulnerable people that we are connected to every day. If you have a diamond on your finger, a smartphone in your pocket, chocolate in your diet or a solar panel on your roof, you have people in slavery making your lifestyle possible and it's making those connections visible.
and are seeking to have greater transparency in those very vulnerable people that allow us to live the lives we do and to make the profits that we do in a business sense. And so it's not virtue signalling in any way, although it can be. And that's, I suppose, where I come back to my comment that it'll be really important that New Zealand doesn't just seek to match
I've heard that language too, you know, kind of catch up with other countries, but actually that we create something that's truly effective, that doesn't just tick boxes and, you know, allow companies to create shiny modern slavery statements each year, which cost a lot of money and don't actually do anything, but actually it leads to change.
TÄnÄ koutou, tÄnÄ koutou, tÄnÄ koutou, tÄnÄ koutou, tÄnÄ koutou. In other words, it won't just be tick-boxing, it will be due diligence. It will be companies actually being required in some cases. Although, again, if it's positively framed,
The hope is that this isn't something that you have to do, this is something that you get to do. You get to create a product or a service to do business in a way that is life-giving and that has integrity and that you can be completely transparent about imperfections and all, knowing who your suppliers are, knowing who the people are that make your products and that you can stand behind that.
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.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of modern slavery in global supply chains?
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
that they're not exploiting people through their products. The cause got a surprising boost from Christopher Luxon during the last election campaign. What would you march in the street for? There's something I feel very passionate about is modern slavery, for example. It's something that I've been really passionate about for a long time. That's something that I think we could do a better job of and have modern slavery legislation and make sure that we're holding up to ourselves to a standard. There's those things I feel passionate about.
We have started to lag a little bit behind the rest of the world in this space and that was a source of anxiety for charities like World Vision, some unions and the opposition, the Labour Party. It was the Labour government that first started working on a modern slavery law in the dying days of the Ardern government. They didn't get it across the line in time.
Yeah, Australia has a regime, the EU, I believe, does, the UK, and you mentioned the sort of the trade deals that we have. And, you know, as part of those trade agreements, we do have to report to them or share information on what we're doing in this space. And I think there was a sense that, you know, maybe we were starting to lag behind, so we needed to...
do something to catch up or, you know, risk affecting our international reputation. And, you know, there are New Zealand businesses who have made that point that actually this is important for us to be able to sell our product overseas and say, yes, we are on top of this. We are, you know, looking at modern slavery and making sure that it's not on our supply chain. So I think there was sort of business appetite for action as well as political appetite.
Yeah, so some businesses were doing it anyway, weren't they? I believe they were not opposed to this legislation. Yeah, yeah. Look, I don't know that there would be a uniform view across all of business, but certainly there were some who had written to the government and said, look, we're supportive of action in this space and fund managers and so on.
Yeah, there'll be some who will be voluntarily reporting on this, and I think who are in fact already required to report on this as a result of their business in other countries. So if they're in Australia or the EU and the UK and they've got a certain revenue threshold or they hit whatever the qualifying criteria are, then they will have to report.
So for some businesses, it's not actually going to or shouldn't require that much more work. But it's just having that alignment and being able to say that, you know, yes, in New Zealand, we've got these same criteria or some form of regime, reporting regime in place. You're looking at some 2019 figures, 5% of all imports were linked to child or forced labour. And that's quite an astounding figure.
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Chapter 6: How can consumers make informed choices regarding products linked to modern slavery?
And some people won't have the luxury of thinking that closely and spending more money for something to give them peace of mind. But for people who can, I think, yeah, just thinking more consciously about this and being aware of those numbers that you've got a relatively high percentage of goods that are coming into the country that might have that sort of substandard labour practices involved is really eye-opening.
The goal is that businesses would be required to have visibility, to have transparency in their supply chain and to be transparent about it. It's not to end modern slavery. You know, for example, the energy sector, 97% of the polysilicon that goes into solar panels comes from forced labour. So basically, if you have a solar panel, you can pretty much guarantee...
that forced labour was involved in its creation. And so it's not a matter of saying, you know, we're going to get rid of that. It's saying we are connected. We have modern slavery in our supply chain. Where is it and what is our influence and what can we do about it? A lot of people come to modern slavery through the lens of risk.
asking what is the risk of modern slavery to me and to my business and to the profits that I'm making. And that's understandable, it's a very human place to start, but it's ultimately ineffective in bringing about any serious change for those who are in slavery. And so I guess what I advocate for is legislation that's not framed around risk,
but around the reality of human slavery and our response to it. So that businesses are not just asking where am I exposed, but where is the harm to vulnerable people in my supply chain that I am making a profit from and what can I do about it.
He has shattered our dreams, just one of the harrowing victim impact statements read out today as New Zealand's first convicted slave master was sentenced to 11 years in prison. A woman who kept her daughter as a slave and sold her for sex 1,000 times can now be named.
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.
Well, it depends ultimately on how it's framed, but again I would say that it does have something to do with, it doesn't matter where it is, whether it's in an orchard in Alexandra in New Zealand or in a factory in Southeast Asia, that it does place the same requirements and mindset.
for those in business such that they have the same transparency for their suppliers in New Zealand or overseas. It doesn't matter where it is. As you say, there are people in slavery in New Zealand. I've met them. I've taken statements from them. And, you know, as I said, I spent eight years documenting cases of modern slavery in more than 12 countries overseas. So it doesn't matter where it is. It's horrific in every form. It's just saying if you're a government department or a business and you're
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