ADJOURNMENT
Mr HAWKE (Mitchell) (16:39): I was pleased this week to join a discussion with key stakeholders from the modern slavery sector in Australia—those people that care for, and work against the exploitation of, migrant workers in our food and agricultural chains and in our labour hire arrangements. It was prompted by two of my constituents, Carolyn Kitto and Fuzz Kiddo—outstanding Australians who work from a long passion for protecting people and preventing modern slavery in supply chains—from the organisation Be Slavery Free.
It followed two Four Corners programs the ABC aired on 27 July and 3 August, about an investigation, called 'Duped: food exposed'. While Four Corners has copped a lot of flack recently—and certainly rightly, in many cases—they also produce good-quality investigations and exposes of vital issues like these, and I recommend these programs to people and to Australians passionate about this issue.
About 10 years ago, I was the Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection and Assistant Minister for Home Affairs in the Turnbull government at the time that we introduced the Modern Slavery Act. I want to acknowledge the Prime Minister then, Malcolm Turnbull, and my colleague Chris Crewther, who produced the initial report—a brilliant report—that led to Australia adopting the Modern Slavery Act.
The act was similar to the UK's act and inspired by the New Zealand act as well. It was designed to be leading in the way that we recognise that, in all our supply chain and work, we need to take account of the slave-like conditions in our region, particularly in South-East Asia and in our neighbouring countries all through the region, so as to not take advantage of the people that are in forced-labour arrangements or in slave-like conditions—and there are many, in many different industries.
It has had a profound effect. I was pleased to join colleagues from all sides of the House to discuss not just this latest Four Corners program but also: what are the next steps in relation to modern slavery within Australia? The people that have watched the program will tell you that the issues that have been exposed there, just in Coffs Harbour, are very serious and that we need to take them into great consideration in our PALM program and our Pacific Labour Scheme, and in our backpacking and other working-holiday-maker arrangements.
I call on the Minister for Home Affairs to think carefully about the implications of this program and what it means, and what is going on in many of our sectors, and to ensure that the department is taking action. I know that he'll take it seriously. The AFP and others have modern slavery units within them, with police dedicated to this, who work with the state police to go and actually make a difference, where we have horrible examples like those in the Four Corners program.
And I recommend that people, and members here, also go and consider it. It's funny how life works, because I had a person very close to me approach me in the parliament after I attended, just last night, this event, and tell me that this person actually went to Coffs Harbour as a young Australian, to go and be a backpacker and work there with their friends out of uni, just because they'd decided to do it as Australians—something not many young Australians actually decide to do.
But, when they arrived at Coffs Harbour, they got the same sense of the berry-picking industry in Coffs Harbour that was exposed in this program—that it was dodgy; that there were bad practices there. And so these young Australians then turned around and left and came back. So the data is coming in—that, in our own country, our own laws are being exploited and not actually enforced, and there are vulnerable people being taken advantage of.
I know the government feels passionately about this. But that's what the Modern Slavery Act was designed to do. Of course, it does require ongoing enforcement, improvement and change.
I note that the Attorney-General has announced just recently that they are going to introduce criminal penalties into the act. While I have spoken very strongly and passionately, and given many speeches, in support of the Modern Slavery Act and action on this, I would urge caution to the government about this. I think a criminal penalty regime isn't going to do the job.
The criminal law has a certain aspect that we need, in terms of criminal enforcement, but we actually need civil law, in relation to these matters, to be more rigorously enforced, through our ACCC and others. Incorrect food-labelling and companies taking advantage of exploitation should be pursued through the existing laws and existing channels. If criminal penalties are introduced into this particular part of the Modern Slavery Act, I don't believe it will have the effect of actually doing something to stop it.
It would be very difficult to actually achieve a criminal prosecution, and it may not be the proper way to do it. I'd ask the government to carefully consider enforcement through the civil laws and change to the civil powers of the ACCC. And I do ask the government to take seriously the evidence that Four Corners has exposed and continue to amend the Modern Slavery Act.