Australia’s Anti-Slavery Commissioner Chris Evans has stated that Australia is falling behind other key markets, such as Europe, and is at risk of becoming a dumping ground for goods that can’t be sold elsewhere.
Speaking to the ABC, Evans called for tougher modern slavery laws in Australia, claiming that many Australian companies are not taking modern slavery reporting seriously and are simply employing a “tick-a-box” approach to compliance.
“Effectively, the current law is voluntary,” he told the outlet.
“People are asked to report, but they don’t actually have any penalties if they don’t report, and there’s no measurement of the quality of what’s done. The difference between the best and the worst is huge.
“Some just give us one page, saying, ‘Our company has a very strong policy, we’re opposed to slavery, thank you very much.’
“That’s not what the law was about.”
Evans recently published an initial position paper setting out two recommendations to strengthen Australia’s modern slavery laws, including mandatory risk-based modern slavery due diligence.
This would require reporting entities, including the Australian Government, to demonstrate that they are taking reasonable steps to identify, prevent and address modern slavery in their operations and supply chains.
The second recommendation would give the Anti-Slavery Commissioner the power to declare that a product, service or industry carries a high risk of modern slavery, requiring Australian businesses to increase their due diligence on such goods.
Evans’s push for reform is backed by the international human rights group Walk Free, which recently released a new report, Overdue Diligence, outlining why reform is essential to strengthen Australia’s legal framework and drive effective action to address forced labour.
“The current review of Australia’s Modern Slavery Act presents a crucial opportunity to introduce mandatory due diligence and prevent exploitation in supply chains linked to the country’s economy,” it said.
“Introducing a due diligence requirement will better protect people from exploitation while ensuring Australian businesses remain competitive in a rapidly changing global regulatory landscape.
“With industry consultations on the Modern Slavery Act review underway, Australia has a clear opportunity to improve its response to modern slavery.
“Global expectations are shifting from transparency toward accountability, and our laws should reflect this.”
Pointing to the garment and seafood industries as particularly high risk, Evans also told the ABC that the sale of slave-made goods may already be underway in Australia.
“I think it’s started already, but certainly I think we’re at risk of becoming seriously impacted by unlawful or poor-practice suppliers selling their goods into the Australian market because they can’t get into other markets,” he said.
Evans’s interview with the ABC comes amid concerns that some of Australia’s largest and most well-known companies are allowing forced labour to take place within their supply chains.
As reported by PASA in August, Kmart – which operates over 300 stores in Australia and New Zealand – has come under fire for alleged links to modern slavery in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women’s Association (AUTWA) has since taken Kmart to court, seeking disclosure of documents relating to two factories listed in Kmart’s 2024 and 2025 supplier lists.
“Since 2017, we’ve had credible reports of millions of Uyghurs being detained and taken into concentration camps, which are later funnelled into labour camps,” AUTWA president Ramila Chanisheff recently told the ABC.
“Now there’s credible evidence out there that a lot of those labour camps make the apparel or cotton products that enter the Western countries and especially here in Australia.
“We’re very concerned because we all do have families, all Australian Uyghurs have family members who have disappeared, and there’s credible evidence of them being taken into these labour camps to work and make the very products that are entering into this country.”
Although the retail giant has strongly denied any wrongdoing, industry observers have called the case “a potential landmark” in how businesses manage supply chain risks in high-risk regions.
“Unlike the United States and the European Union, Australia does not ban imports linked to forced labour, nor does it impose a duty on companies to act on modern slavery risks – only to report them,” said Professor Shelley Marshall, RMIT University School of Law.
“This case may pave the way for a groundbreaking claim under consumer law for misleading conduct and calls into question the strength of Australia’s commitment to eradicating modern slavery.”
Ansell has also been rocked by claims of wage theft and forced labour involving its supplier, MediCeram, which previously made glove moulds for the manufacturer of personal protection equipment.
The case concerns 200 Bangladeshi nationals who were MediCeram employees and paid large sums to brokers in Bangladesh to help them reach Malaysia, where the MediCeram factory is based.
Back in September, a complaint was lodged with the Australian Treasury by activist Andy Hall, who claimed the supplier was abusing its Bangladeshi workers, with allegations of passport confiscation, wage theft and deportation if complaints were made to management.
“They’re facing a situation of, I guess, systemic forced labour stemming from debt bondage from the recruitment costs they paid to come in from Bangladesh,” Hall told the ABC.
The workers went on strike following Hall’s complaint, alleging that MediCeram had broken a deal to repay the recruitment fees they had paid to agents and had also failed to renew more than 90 employee visas.
This led to MediCeram dismissing 180 workers, resulting in some of them being deported back to Bangladesh.
“I think it’s clear that Ansell is responsible for this situation,” Hall added.
“From what we understand, they didn’t do effective due diligence – even maybe they didn’t do any due diligence at all – before they started sourcing from the company, even though the risks of forced labour amongst Bangladeshi workers are so high in Malaysia.
“There’s a systemic issue of Bangladeshi workers being trafficked by an alleged criminal syndicate for forced labour in Malaysia. This is so well-known, and any company that sources products from Malaysia and those products are manufactured in any way using Bangladeshi workers is clearly complicit in that system.
“Their whole system for assessing risk, preventing forced labour and remediating forced labour, needs to be completely overhauled as a result of this case.”
Ansell denied any wrongdoing, saying it had undertaken due diligence, including third-party audits of its suppliers. It promptly dropped MediCeram, providing financial assistance to help MediCeram reimburse workers for around AU$1.4 million.
MediCeram has since collapsed, declaring itself insolvent and appointing liquidators.
