NEW LEGISLATION
• To combat modern slavery, • To provide assistance and support for victims of modern slavery, • To provide for an Anti-slavery Commissioner (the Commissioner), • To provide for detection and exposure of modern slavery that may have occurred or be occurring or that is likely to occur, • To raise community awareness of, and provide for education and training about, modern slavery,
• Enabling the Commissioner to work co-operatively with, and disseminate information to, such other agencies, persons, bodies and organisations as the Commissioner thinks appropriate, • Protecting persons providing information to the Commissioner in accordance with the Act and in good faith from criminal or civil liability, • Providing for the exercise of the Commissioner of powers that are necessary to be done in connection with, or reasonably incidental to, the exercise of specific powers conferred on the Commissioner by the proposed Act,
• To encourage collaborative action to combat modern slavery, • To provide for the assessment of the effectiveness and appropriateness of laws prohibiting modern slavery and to improve the implementation and enforcement of such laws, • To provide for mandatory reporting of risks of modern slavery occurring in the supply chains of certain corporate bodies, • To make forced marriage of a child and certain slavery and slavery-like conduct offences in New South Wales, • To further penalise involvement in cybersex trafficking by making if an offence to administer a digital platform for the purpose of child abuse material. Once appointed, the Anti-slavery Commissioner’s functions under the Act, amongst other matters include: • Making it clear that the Commissioner’s functions may generally be exercised with respect to any government or non-government agency, person, matter or thing (whether or not they are in or of, or for, the State), • Making it clear that the Commissioner’s role does not include investigating or dealing directly with individual cases, • Requiring the Commissioner to prepare strategic plans addressing the Commissioner’s key objectives and priorities in the periods to which they relate and setting out how the Commissioner proposes to exercise the Commissioner’s functions in the period concerned, • Describing the Commissioner’s public awareness and advice functions, • Providing for the exchange of information relating to modern slavery or suspected instances of modern slavery between the Commissioner and other persons and agencies, bodies and organisations, • Imposing duty on agencies in or of New South Wales that provide or deal with services or issues affecting victims of modern slavery and the Commissioner to work co-operatively in exercising their functions,
•Providing for the delegation of the Commissioner’s powers. The Act also requires all commercial entities (that supply goods and services) with total revenue of $50m and an employee in New South Wales to prepare annual public modern slavery statement for each financial year to be made publicly available within a set period after the end of that business’s financial year to be set out in the regulations made under the Act. Penalties up to $1.1m will apply for non-compliance and for false or misleading statement. In contrast, the proposed federal Modern Slavery Bill is expected to be limited to entities with total consolidated revenue of threshold of $100m and it is not expected to provide any penalties for non-compliance. The Act provides that the reporting requirements of statements will be set by regulation, but may include: (a) The organisation’s structure, its business and its supply chains; (b) Its due diligence process in relation to modern slavery; (c)
Parts of the business and supply chains where risks exist, and steps taken to manage those risks; and (d) Training about modern slavery to its employees.
For Government Procurement, the Commissioner must regularly consult with the Auditor-General and the NSW Procurement Board to monitor the effectiveness of due diligence procedures in place to ensure that the procurement of goods and services by government agencies are not the product of modern slavery. Members are also advised that the Federal Government has introduced legislation into the House of Representatives which seeks to establish a Modern Slavery Act on a national basis. The Federal Modern Slavery Bill proposes to require domestic and foreign entitles with an annual revenue of $100million who are carrying on business in Australia, to submit ‘Modern Slavery Statements’ every 12 months. Information contained in those Statements are anticipated to be similar to the NSW State Modern Slavery Act requirements. However, unlike its NSW counterpart, the Federal Bill does not propose a penalty for failure to comply, and in fact it expressly limits a penalty being introducted in the future. Issue Four | August/September 2018 | MBA NSW
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Contents Relations Industrial
The objects of the Act are:
