Australia’s response to forced labour is at a crossroads

The US Government launched investigations into 60 economies in March this year to allegedly assess whether they had put in place and were enforcing bans on the import of goods made with forced labour.

The scope was significant and covered almost every major trading partner, including Australia, the European Union, China, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

This week, those findings landed. According to the US government, no economy was doing enough to tackle forced labour.

Because Australia does not have a forced labour import ban, it is now facing a potential 12.5% tariff on exports to the US.

Australia does have a Modern Slavery Act that requires reporting, but it still allows high-risk goods to enter the country. The scale of that import risk is significant.

Data from Walk Free and Fair Supply, published earlier this year, found that nearly AU$100 billion worth of goods imported into Australia are at heightened risk of modern slavery.

This, together with the 41,000 people estimated to be living in modern slavery in Australia, shows that this is not a marginal issue that the Australian Government can ignore.

While import bans matter, they need to be part of a broader, coordinated response that tackles both market access and root causes across imports and domestic production.

This looks like:

The motivations behind these investigations are murky, considering the high levels of modern slavery in the US itself and valid criticisms of their region-specific labour bans.

But the global attention this has generated does matter. This is now a moment that Australia can either meet or miss.