Behind the scenes: reporting under Australia’s Modern Slavery Act

Australia’s Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) (MSA) requires businesses and Commonwealth government entities with an annual turnover of $100 million or more to publish an annual statement on what they are doing to assess and address the risks of modern slavery in their operations and supply chains. Modern slavery includes human trafficking, forced labour, the worst forms of child labour, domestic servitude, and bonded labour. Modern slavery statements submitted by businesses under the Act are publicly available for analysis but may tell us little about the ‘behind the scenes’ processes, tools, structures and relationships within reporting entities. This research contributes to a deeper understanding through 10 in-depth semi-structured interviews with reporting entities where participants discussed the structures and supports they used both internally and externally, the importance of relationships with a range of internal and external stakeholders and the barriers and gaps they experienced in their roles and efforts to comply with the Act. I propose recommendations for strengthening the MSA and its implementation that could inform the three-year review mandated under section 24 of the Act.