Modern Slavery Bill

Modern Slavery Bill First Reading CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) (16:50): I move, That the Modern Slavery Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Education and Workforce Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 31 August 2026. This bill has been the work of many, and it has also been many years in getting to this House and getting to the stage of first reading. I think it was back in March 2021 when 100 businesses signed a letter asking for the Government to introduce modern slavery legislation. For myself, I’ve probably been working on this particular issue for the last three years—a lot shorter than many other members of the NGO community and those who have been advocating for action on modern slavery in New Zealand. Now, it won’t be lost on anyone today that this bill has come to the House through a slightly different path, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that this is the first time that the Standing Order 288, as it currently is drafted in our Standing Orders, has been used to bring a member’s bill to the House. I hope very much that it won’t be the last time that this happens. I think, often, when we can find common ground and we can stand together on important issues, that is when we can truly make enduring change for New Zealand. I want to acknowledge the parties that got us over that threshold, which we passed quite comfortably in the end: the National Party, the Labour Party, and the Greens. Thank you for standing with us to get this bill across the line, and thank you for those other parties that hopefully will support this bill moving forward. I have to also acknowledge my colleague whose name is also on this bill, Greg Fleming. Greg, ka nui te mihi ki a koe, e hoa, mō tō mahi i tēnei kaupapa. [Greg, many thanks to you, my friend, for your work on this initiative.] This bill has a journey to go through in terms of the select committee process, but because it feels like we’ve been working so long on this, I feel I should at least acknowledge some of the people who have worked on it to date, because it is a significant achievement. I want to acknowledge especially Rebekah Armstrong from World Vision, who I know will be watching this debate. I want to also thank the other members of World Vision and also the young ambassadors, some of whom are present in the gallery. Thank you for your very strong advocacy in this matter. Also, I want to acknowledge Tearfund. Tearfund have been working on modern slavery and advocating against modern slavery for many, many years. I want to acknowledge legal experts Rebecca Kingi and Jacob Parry and, additionally, the members of the modern slavery leadership advisory group that was chaired by Rob Fyfe; the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and the Public Service Association Youth, who have been actively campaigning on this issue; the Human Rights Commission; and also faith communities, such as the Anglican Church. This list of people indicates the broad support that this bill has in the community and the need for action on it. What is modern slavery? Obviously, it’s something that this bill is opposed to. It’s some of the worst forms of conduct that an individual can conduct against another person—slavery, forced marriage, child labour, trafficking in persons, debt bondage or serfdom, forced labour or exploitative labour, servitude, and sexual exploitation. That’s the modern slavery that is covered in this bill, as defined by this bill. Is it a problem in New Zealand? Well, unfortunately, it’s a problem around the world and also in New Zealand. There are 50 million people who are trapped in modern slavery globally, it’s estimated. Many of those people might be involved in supply chains that New Zealanders interact with. It’s estimated that New Zealand households spend $77 per week on products associated with modern slavery. I should also note that one in four of those people who are estimated to be living in modern slavery are children. Two-thirds of the people who are living in modern slavery live in our region, in the Asia-Pacific region. We know that we trade extensively with that region and, also, that we have responsibilities and we play a leadership role within that region, so it makes it especially important that New Zealand takes action on modern slavery. Of course, I’ve been talking about this being a global problem. This is also an issue within New Zealand, as well, and it’s estimated that 8,000 people currently live in modern slavery conditions in New Zealand. One is too many, and so this bill is a good bill. It’s not a perfect bill, but it is a bill that will address these very, very serious and significant issues for people who are living through some of the toughest of times. How will this bill go about addressing these significant issues that the world faces and, also, New Zealand faces? It will bring New Zealand into line with comparable jurisdictions like the EU, the UK, and Australia, who already have anti - modern slavery regimes and regimes to address these issues. It would establish a statutory framework to require large businesses to report on their supply chains. It would also create a register. Now, it’s important to note that this is about trying to find issues of modern slavery when they arise so they can be addressed. It is not about finding modern slavery and saying, “Well, that company is now blacklisted, and we’re not going to trade with them at all.” It’s actually about encouraging those companies to identify instances and actually address them. That is how the important change to reverse these horrendous conditions for people is actually achieved. This bill will also increase public awareness and also support victims of modern slavery. It also provides opportunities for review on the effectiveness of the bill, and it also requires consideration to set up a specialist body to combat modern slavery and for a Minister to actually report on modern slavery, as well. This bill is not toothless. There are consequences for those organisations and individuals who it applies to and that do not comply with that. That’s in terms of offences and, also, with accessing public funds and public contracts. I mentioned that this bill is not perfect. This bill was hard for us to draft because we did it as a member’s bill; we relied on expertise of people outside Parliament, and we also relied heavily on our very excellent drafters within Parliament. This is not a bill that has been drafted with the support of a ministry or an organisation who would usually advise on the drafting of a bill. This is a bill that is very good. It’s a good bill, it will make a good law, and it’s the right thing to do, but it certainly is something where I know both myself and Greg Fleming will be encouraging the select committee to look at it in terms of the way it works and in terms of the provisions that are incorporated within it, to look at its effectiveness, to listen—truly listen—to the submitters, especially those who will be impacted by this bill, and to make sure that this bill is something that is going to actually work for New Zealand, not create work but actually address the serious issues of those who are living in modern slavery. That is, hopefully, what the select committee will do. It’s actually a really big job for them, so I thank the Education and Workforce Committee for taking on that role. The intention of this, though, is to also look at the consistency with comparable jurisdictions. We know many of these large organisations that will be covered by this bill already report on modern slavery, and we don’t want to duplicate that unnecessarily, so if there are ways of saving time, being efficient, reporting on similar things, and making sure that the organisations can utilise the fact that these reports are already being written in countries like, for example, Australia, then that is something that, I think, the committee should definitely look at. This isn’t a bill that comes to the House with unanimous support. For those parties that may stand against the bill, I just say to them: it’s not too late to change your mind and support this bill. This is a practical bill that will address a very serious problem. There’s huge support within New Zealand businesses and with New Zealanders. I think the survey that was taken in 2002 showed 81 percent of New Zealanders support New Zealand taking action on modern slavery. It’s supported by Business New Zealand. This is not controversial. It’s the right thing to do. I say to New Zealand: those parties that do vote against this bill—when parties tell you who they are, believe them, and if they stand against actions like modern slavery, then you know that that is the type of party that they are and that they purport to be. It is up to them to— Hon Member: Explain themselves. CAMILLA BELICH: Explain themselves to New Zealand if they decide to do that, but, again, the invitation to join us in this bill is still there. My 10 minutes is up. I look forward to participating in the select committee process. I want to thank, again, the many, many hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have advocated for this change for a really long time. We’re not there yet, but this is a significant step forward. This is an historic day for the New Zealand Parliament, and I commend this bill to the House. DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to. GREG FLEMING (National—Maungakiekie) (17:00): E te Māngai o te Whare. This is indeed—as my friend and colleague Camilla Belich has just said—an historic day, both in terms of how we have arrived here but, even more importantly, it is the legislation that now begins its journey at this point. Tēnā hoki koe, Camilla, mō te whānui me te roa o tō mahi i runga i tēnei kaupapa. [Thanks to you also, Camilla, for the breadth and length of your work on this initiative.] It’s been brilliant to work with you for the last year and a half now, so thank you so much for your support. I do want to add my acknowledgements and my thankyous to those of Camilla. I want to start with my boss and my friend, and that is the Prime Minister, for the simple truth is that without his support and his urging on this issue, we wouldn’t be here today. This really has been a whole-of-Parliament process to get us here, and Camilla has laid that out in terms of us being able to use Standing Order 288 for the first time to actually be able to co-sponsor a bill. But none of that would have been possible without the support of my caucus, so thank you to my caucus—thank you to every one of you for giving me the chance to do this. And thank you, particularly, to the Prime Minister for the urgency that you have brought to this. I remember speaking to the Prime Minister many years ago about this before he came into Parliament, and I knew that this was a passion of his. For political reasons that have been well canvassed now, we weren’t able to bring this forward as a Government bill, and so the opportunity to bring it through the track that we have and through to today is something that he has been 100 percent behind. I thank him deeply for that. To Barbara Kuriger, who moments ago was in the chair: I wanted to thank her for agreeing to take the bill out of the member’s tin that she had had in there for quite some time so as to allow this bill to make its passage. In fact, that bill had its own genesis in the outstanding and long and dedicated work of Simon O’Connor. Simon, I know that you have stood in this House for 12 years and advocated on this matter, and I want to acknowledge the groundbreaking work that you did there and the foundations that you laid, that we now build upon. To Alex Prendergast and Kaylee Hill—two remarkable students from just outside of Christchurch, who six years ago approached their then very new and local MP Nicola Grigg with an idea for a member’s bill. That member’s bill became my member’s bill three years later, and that was the bill that has since been picked up by Minister Paul Goldsmith and is now making its way through the Government Order Paper, and that addresses the inconsistencies in the prosecution of human trafficking both domestically and internationally. It was working with those two students on that bill that opened, for me, the doorway into this far more substantive piece of work that is before us now. Thank you, Alex and Kaylee, for your vision and for your application. I really hope that the two of you do choose to serve in areas adjacent to this House and maybe even one day here, because you certainly have proven that you have all that it takes. To Selwyn Coles, my friend at Te Ana Tapu in Tāmaki Makaurau; it was about two years ago that he handed me a copy of his master’s thesis that he had completed at the University of Oxford in pursuit of a Masters of Laws, and his thesis topic was looking at the arguments for and against introducing a modern slavery reporting framework in this country. It was an incredibly thoughtful piece of work. He spent a year of his life on it, and it canvassed well all of the objections and the doubts about the efficacy of the proposed law. During the select committee process, I look forward to bringing that work of Selwyn’s forward. I don’t pretend, and neither do most of us here, that this is a silver bullet. There is no single action that can overcome and address the scourge of modern slavery, both here in New Zealand and, even more worrisome, abroad. But it is an important part of addressing that evil. It does turn the attention of companies to their supply chains on a regular basis. It has been proven time and again, in our trading partners from Australia to the UK to Canada and across Western Europe, that when companies look for these things, they see things that they hadn’t previously seen. That is the fruit of this modern slavery reporting framework. And I thank, again, Selwyn for his work on that. Camilla has already mentioned Rebekah Armstrong, Becky Kingi, Jacob Parry, and Clayton Walker for the incredible work that they did on that Modern Slavery and Trafficking Expert Practitioners Group bill. We acknowledge that this modern slavery reporting framework is but one part—a very important part—of that overall approach that addresses modern slavery in here and in our international supply chains. The other parts we are addressing, both as a Government and, in fact, in this bill—and this will come out the select committee stage—we are looking forward to a conversation with the Human Rights Commission in terms of their possible contribution around the oversight and the enforcement of this proposed framework. To that extent, I want to acknowledge Stephen Rainbow and Gail Pacheco, and also David Rutherford, the former Human Rights Commissioner, for the work that they have done on this and the counsel that they have provided. It’s been enormously appreciated. To Claire Gray at Tearfund, thank you. I know that Claire wanted to be here today. I’m sorry you couldn’t be, Claire. I know you’re watching online. Thank you so much for the technical expertise that you’ve offered and the constant encouragement. You’ve been brilliant. To Matt Friedman at the Mekong Club—he’s been working in this area for over 20 years and it was my engagement with him and the first-hand accounts of the difference that these reporting frameworks have made across the world that really urged me to work harder and more urgently to bring this kind of legislation before our House. I am reminded of a conversation that I had at Waitangi—Mr Speaker, look at that—conversation at Waitangi this year. Waitangi week is filled with challenging and wonderful and inspiring conversations. This one was of a different kind, in that it wasn’t looking at the normal issues of Waitangi week. Instead, it was a long dinner at CBK, down there beside the helicopter terminal there, and I was with Jenny and Justin Duckworth. Justin is the Archbishop of the Anglican Church— Carl Bates: From Whanganui. GREG FLEMING: From Whanganui, that’s right—that fine electorate with that outstanding, local, hard-working, seen-everywhere MP. Justin and I have been friends for several years now and he is an advocate par excellence for all these kinds of things. He and his wife, Jenny, have passed this on to their daughter Maya, who works with Claire in advocacy work at Tearfund. Jenny asked me a question—we were talking about this modern slavery reporting bill and the opportunity to bring it before the House using this bipartisan approach. Jenny said to me, “You know, Greg, can you tell me honestly, you’ve worked in this space for years”—because those who don’t know me, I worked in the community sector for 25 years before I came to serve here. She said, “All of this advocacy, all of this work that is done by thousands of young people, all this stirring that happens, does it really work? Does it really make a difference?” I told her about what was coming up, what it was that we’ve been working on here, what Camilla and I and my caucus had been driving through. I looked at her and I said, “The reality of it is, Jenny, that without that advocacy over the years of all those people,”—all those people that we’ve mentioned here and the thousands of others that we haven’t directly named—“without their work, we wouldn’t be here. So yes, it does work. It really, really does.” I oti i a koutou—you did it; we did it. I commend this bill to the House. TEANAU TUIONO (Green) (17:10): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Greens to support this first reading of the bill. First of all, I want to acknowledge the victims of modern slavery and the linkages there between those that are pushed into forced servitude, forced labour, unfair exploitative labour conditions, trafficking, and all of those horrendous, horrible things which many have advocated to prevent and to stop and to highlight over the many, many years. I’m sure I’m not the only member of Parliament that received the emails from World Vision, Tearfund, and others who support us, such as the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. I’ve got emails from them as well and also from faith-based organisations and, of course, the Human Rights Commission as well. To get to this point is an important step. I do want to acknowledge the two members who brought this bill to this place. Tēnā kōrua, Greg Fleming and Camilla Belich. I think this is bill number three or four, maybe—I’m losing track at the success of Camilla Belich’s ability to get things out of the biscuit tin. That was the first time that this has happened under Standing Order 288, but I do note that there could have been another pathway for this bill to get to the floor, and it could have come to the floor via a Government bill. Good on Greg Fleming and good on Camilla Belich for going around Brooke van Velden, who has been very busy in the area of workplace relations, doing all the wrong things, eroding workplace relations here, there, and everywhere. Unfortunately, she did not have enough time at all to address the very basics of what people would expect to oppose modern slavery. I’m sure the House will look forward to the contributions from the ACT Party as they try to explain themselves out of this little corner. This bill will require reporting entities to report on how they identify, address, mitigate, and remediate incidents of modern slavery. It will require the Minister to report annually on progress towards combating modern slavery and to issue guidance on reporting suspected incidents of modern slavery processes that Government agencies should follow in response. It, as the two speakers before me said, will focus on those big businesses, but I do note some of the comments that have been made: when this is the pathway for legislation to get to the floor, members themselves don’t have the full backing of a whole Government department to help them to draft it. The workload will be on the select committee to make sure that we iron out all the different bits and pieces of this legislation, and I expect there will be some—there will be some. As was talked about earlier, there are issues around modern slavery with links with child exploitation, but I note that, actually, we’ve ratified some of the international agreements on that, so that has been taken care of in other parts, but how it links forward to this particular bill, I think, will be an important question—and also all the other international instruments that deal with trafficking of people etc., etc., as well. These are issues that we will need to tease out at the select committee because we don’t have a Government Minister with the backing of a whole lot of officials to make sure that we can iron that out. One of the questions I do have is around the scope, and I get it. You have members’ day, and the members’ bills tend to be as narrow in scope as possible to be able to get enough support to get over the line. One of the issues that we could be talking about as well is: why are we just looking at bigger companies when, actually, exploitation in the form of modern slavery can often happen within small businesses and it could often happen in other circumstances which are not part of the supply chain? These are issues that we should be able to tease out within the select committee. This is an important bill. This is an important step. I do want to, once again, acknowledge the two members for finding a very creative way to bring this to the floor. Well done. It had to come to the floor sooner or later. It could have come with the full resources of the Government, but congratulations to those two members. We will be debating these issues on the floor and getting into more and more of the detail at the select committee to make sure that we can actually start the step to stopping modern slavery. Thank you, Mr Speaker. LAURA McCLURE (ACT) (17:15): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Before I start my speech, I just want to thank the organisations for the work that they do in this space. I know that it is a really hard area to be in, and I hope that you take care of yourselves with some of the things that you might be confronted with. Let me be absolutely clear: modern slavery is a moral abomination. The exploitation of human beings has no place here in New Zealand or around the world. There is not a single person in this House who is soft on slavery. I don’t believe there is a single one. That is actually not the question before us today. The question is whether this bill as it is drafted will meaningfully make a difference here in New Zealand or whether it will simply make us feel like we have done something about modern slavery. This bill is a near perfect encapsulation of what Milton Friedman warned us about when he said, “One of the greatest mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” I will say that there are really good intentions behind this bill, and I know both of the members that are involved have the very best intentions. Had you maybe come and talked to me about this, we may be in a different position, but I haven’t actually spoken to either member about this bill and nor have a lot of my colleagues. As much as we’re doing a bit of a “Kumbaya” here, and you feel like the party is out on their own, we actually weren’t. We weren’t consulted on it. We weren’t consulted. What New Zealanders deserve from this House are not good intentions but actually good policy, and on the evidence before us, this is not actually good policy. First, the title of this bill certainly sounds very nice, and many New Zealanders out there will be thinking that we’re going to be doing something about modern slavery and we should be doing something about it. New Zealand already does actually have robust laws against slavery. In fact, it has been almost 200 years since slavery was abolished in New Zealand when we became a British colony back in 1840. Since then, these laws have evolved to a multitude of different offences. We have obviously got the Crimes Act. This bill explicitly acknowledges that in its own definitions. There’s always a case for these punishments to be reviewed, especially if it seems like we are being too lenient, but this bill doesn’t do that. In fact, we know that we have modern slavery here in New Zealand, and we should be tackling that first. There was just a case the other day—and most of you will be familiar about it—around the Thai massage parlour and the immigrants that were being exploited there. It’s absolutely horrendous. This problem here in New Zealand is happening. We do have the labour inspectorate, who are doing a very good job, but it could be, actually, that we should be increasing our penalties and we should be coming down harder on what is actually happening here in New Zealand. Under this bill, a company may not exploit a single human being, it could even be a model employer, but if it misses a paperwork deadline or files a deficient statement, it faces up to $200,000 in fines. This is around administrative or non-administrative punishment. This is not a policy brought on a cornerstone of freeing victims; it is built on filling in forms and ticking boxes. I know this bill is going to go to the select committee because it has the support of the other parties. I’d be very keen to see the evidence that this bill actually makes a difference. We can’t just blindly follow other countries down the path, because we think it is the right thing to do. We need to actually assess what is happening and whether it will have any actual impact here in New Zealand. The other thing that I think is the most concerning point is that discretion is handed to the responsible Minister over what a company’s revenue is. This bill, as it states, is set to $100 million, and a lot of us could probably agree that when a company earns over that, they can afford the administrative duties, and I think there is a good argument in that, but do we really trust that a future Minister, with the stroke of a pen, won’t actually change that to $100,000 or $10,000? That in itself is really concerning. I know the opposite side of the House have been arguing within other pieces of legislation around Ministers being awarded that power and when something should actually be Parliament’s duty to decide, so I really do hope that the select committee look at that. We’re not really data debating a $100 million threshold here; we are actually debating something bigger than this. Finally, New Zealand is not the first country to run this experiment, and despite the ability to look at other jurisdictions, like Australia and like the United Kingdom, it seems we’d rather be a fast follower than a smart follower. We can do better. We could actually tackle modern slavery, and we should be doing better right here in New Zealand first. Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Immigration) (17:20): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Modern Slavery Bill which we, of course, will be supporting. New Zealand First has always advocated for the rights of the worker and we think this is an important piece of legislation. I do sincerely commend the members Camilla Belich and Greg Fleming for working together to achieve this piece of legislation. I acknowledge the members for talking about the fact that this is a starting point. This is an important starting point, but it is a starting point. I reflect on 2020, when New Zealand saw its first slavery conviction in New Zealand and we were appalled. We found it abhorrent and we couldn’t believe that it happened on our shores. Moving on from that, over the past six years, we have seen a growing trend and it is why I’m advocating so hard on our response to organised crime. Where people are a commodity, as in any commodity used by criminals to make money, people have now become that commodity. Slavery is not new. It has been around for thousands of years, but we are a society that’s moved on and we should be judged by how we deal with this issue now. I would like to personally acknowledge Dr Christina Stringer from Auckland University, who was a great educator for me when I first started working in this space. She was an incredible academic with a lot of wisdom in this space and wrote one of the first white papers on modern slavery and Governments’ response to it. It is a complex issue, we acknowledge, and it is a complex issue because we want to ensure that our outcomes achieve the impacts. I do acknowledge the ACT member for talking about being judged by the outcomes of our legislation, and not just that we have legislation, but I think it has been traversed clearly in this House that this is the starting point that we need. It is recognised that reporting and accountability will be necessary, but I’m old enough to know when we first introduced health and safety legislation and we fundamentally started with a reporting mechanism and a policy development. Over time, that legislation grew teeth, it grew strength, and it grew, most importantly, accountability for those who do wrong. The challenge we have with modern slavery is it is complex. It has many forms. It is fundamentally abusing human rights and the individuals’ rights for freedom through coercion, through violence, through intimidation, through a range of things where we take vulnerable people and make them our playthings, effectively. This is why I think it is necessary to bring the legislation forward. It is a good starting point. We look forward to the select committee process. I think it is important to understand that we want to gain visibility in this process and our reporting mechanisms have to ensure that we encourage transparency and reporting, that those who do good, who delve into their supply chains, who audit, who do all the right things should be commended for that effort, not condemned when they find slavery within their supply chain. That is an important balance we need to strike, otherwise we will end up with perverse outcomes where we would be choosing to not see it rather than see it, report it, and therefore risk being held accountable for it being in your supply chain. We’ve talked about the big businesses and how they have the capacity to deal with this. They also have brand exposure. They also have the risk that when it is found in their supply chain, they will be condemned in the international markets and they will be held accountable. But we want to ensure that those big businesses have independent, strong auditing within their supply chains so that they are driven and incentivised to make sure that they weed it out, they look for it, and they’re encouraged to do so. I also look forward to working closely to deliver better outcomes around how we respond to the organised crime component of modern slavery, that we recognise those bad actors that are manipulating human beings and that have some degree of anonymity within big supply chains, that we do more to weed out the slavery that is occurring in New Zealand. We recognise that there is domestic trafficking within New Zealand. We recognise that this is not just across borders, that exploitation is a reality and we need a legislative solution that will deliver those positive outcomes. I really do acknowledge and support the members for bringing this to the House. I think there is a good opportunity through a select committee process to ensure we have good engagement and therefore New Zealand First commends the bill to the House. ORIINI KAIPARA (Te Pāti Māori—Tāmaki Makaurau) (17:25): Tēnā koe. E tautoko ana, e tino tautoko ana i ngā mihi ki ngā mema Pāremata nā rāua tēnei kaupapa. Ki a koe, Greg Fleming nō te Rōpū Nāhinara, kōrua tahi ko Camila Bellich. Tēnā kōrua i tēnei mahi. [Thank you. I support, I very much support, the acknowledgements to the members of Parliament to whom this initiative belongs: to you, Greg Fleming from the National Party, to yourself and Camilla Belich. Congratulations to both of you for this work.] It goes without saying, we are not just discussing a bill; we are discussing the integrity of our nationhood. We often speak of Aotearoa as a beacon of human rights, yet our daily lives are quietly fuelled by exploitation. The latest Global Slavery Index estimates that 50 million people globally are trapped in modern slavery, and 8,000 of them are right here in Aotearoa. Look at our streets. Look at our tracks. We know that global entities like CRRC, which supplies the very buses and trains that make our cities go around, have been linked to alleged forced labour in international supply chains. When our own public transport is potentially built on the backs of oppressed peoples, we’re not just observers of injustice; we are participants in it. We cannot preach freedom while riding on the results of bondage. This bill is our chance to say enough; we’re not just following the world. Contrary to popular belief, we are leading. Unlike the UK or Australian models, this bill introduces real teeth: director liability. This bill goes further by including penalties and liabilities for directors. If you profit from slave labour, the buck stops at the boardroom table. Thresholds for transparency: it targets large reporting entities with $100 million or more in revenue, requiring them to be transparent about how they identify, mitigate, and remediate incidents of slavery. Specialist oversight: it explores the establishment of an independent anti-slavery commissioner to lead this work with the enforcement power it requires. For Te Pāti Māori, our support for this bill—and, yes, we absolutely support this bill—is a matter of mana motuhake. Slavery is the ultimate theft of a person’s authority over their own life. It is that antithesis of everything that we stand for—mana ōrite. We must confront the inequality that allows $8 billion worth of goods made with forced or child labour to enter our ports every year. No person’s mana should be diminished because they’re desperate to survive. Mana mokopuna: bringing an end to modern slavery will benefit mokopuna across the world, not just here in Aotearoa. We owe them a legacy of liberation, not a supply chain of suffering. In conclusion, we hear the ACT Party. We hear that they will vote against this, preaching personal liberty. But Te Pāti Māori, in this House, we ask, “Whose liberty—the liberty of a business to ignore blood in its supply chain, or the liberty of human beings to live without chains?” We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. If one person is enslaved, the freedom of all of us is a hollow promise. It’s time to clear our consciousness and our cupboards of slave labour. Te Pāti Māori absolutely supports this bill and we support the emancipation of all people. Tēnā tātou. Hon JAN TINETTI (Labour) (17:29): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Often, when we hear that word “slavery”, it’s something that creates a really physical response in most of us. It’s something that we see as being horrific and horrendous. Often, we will think about it in terms of we don’t hear it, we don’t see it here in New Zealand, so it doesn’t exist, and yet that’s not the case—that is not the case, Mr. Speaker. We know, as the previous speaker and other speakers have said, that not only does it exist in supply chains and across the globe, the 2023 Global Survey Index recognised that there would be approximately 8,000 people living in modern slavery in New Zealand. That’s 8,000 people living on our shores who are living in the most horrific and horrendous conditions that we could imagine. I want to say, firstly, a big congratulations to my colleagues across the House: to Camilla Belich and Greg Fleming. Thank you for the work you have done, and congratulations on getting this bill to the point that we’re here debating the first reading this evening. As many others have said in this House, this is a start. I acknowledge that both of you have said the bill’s not perfect, and we know that, but, hey, it’s more perfect than having nothing. Before that, we had nothing; we currently have nothing; and this bill is the start of us acknowledging and putting this right. I also want to acknowledge before I move on, because I am talking about those two members—congratulations on the work that you have done to create history in Parliament. This is a really, really big day for Parliament, that we have bypassed the ballot and we have used the Standing Order for the first time that enables this bill to go straight to first reading and then through to select committee. I’m really proud that we can stand here as a Parliament and do that, so well done. I happen to know, because I work closely with Camilla Belich in the workplace relations portfolio, the work that both of you have done, and I’m really impressed, because you’ve both been very tenacious in this. So, congratulations. I also want to say a big thankyou, as others have done, to all the NGOs and the lobbyists who have really, really made this a big focus in this Parliament. I have been to several events they have run in this area to highlight just how big of an issue this is in Aotearoa New Zealand. I have grown my awareness over that time, and it is thanks to them. I think, before all of this, I probably was one of those people that thought this does not exist on our New Zealand shores. I think, if we’re all honest, there was a point that we came to believe, through their lobbying and through their activism, that we understood the rationale and the reason why this bill is so important for us to progress within this Parliament. We’re talking about protecting vulnerable people, people who have very few other options in their life to get past this. They are being exploited. Because they’re in vulnerable situations, they are accepting in many cases, and it’s not on them; it is on people that are putting them into these positions in the first place. They have to be accepting because they can’t see any other options. Well, today we’re saying that we see them—we see them and we are prepared to stand up for them, and we are prepared to stand up with them. That is something that is, again, a very historic day for us, and it sits at the heart of all of our values in this Parliament. I know we all come here to support people and to put people at the centre of what we do, and the fact that we can come together across the parties—well, most of the parties—is a really, really historic day. This is what’s good about politics. Sometimes people don’t see that; sometimes we don’t see that ourselves, but this is what’s good about politics. I look forward to seeing this bill progress through the House. KATIE NIMON (National—Napier) (17:34): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m really pleased to be able to stand in support of this bill and to acknowledge both Camilla Belich and my friend and colleague Greg Fleming. When Greg talked to me about this bill potentially coming to the Education and Workforce Committee, I explained why that was a really exciting thing and something that I knew the committee would support. One of the reasons for that is the committee—and I think we’ve got a very constructive committee, and I’ve really enjoyed that over the last couple of years. One thing that we have all agreed on is our position against and on migrant exploitation. We’ve followed that really closely when we review Immigration New Zealand and where that’s going and the work that we’re doing around that. Now, that’s just a small part of modern slavery that’s addressed in this space, but it is something that I know we have followed closely and would find a lot of similarities, certain issues where, if we address this, we can certainly go in the right direction towards addressing migrant exploitation in general. I just want to say, too, in terms of the select committee process, before I move on to some of my own reflections, that it’s something, in a wider sense, in the way we operate in New Zealand that I think the committee will be in some cases not surprised, in some cases really disappointed, but really inspired by our ability to make the change and what this is going to genuinely turn out to do. When we open for submissions, which we will do shortly, we really want to hear from a breadth of organisations, whether it’s NGOs, the people that have lobbied and advocated for years and years on this, but, as well as that, organisations that maybe are already doing this really well and can set an example and show us how this works and what we can do to make it right; or those that will be working with this, those large organisations, and how this would look for them. We want to make sure that something like this genuinely works and has sustainable outcomes, because that is what this is about. We don’t want opposition in the business world or in various sectors; we want this to be supported for all the right reasons. That brings me to my point, my own personal reflection. We have these large organisations—we’ve talked about this in the bill. They have the resources to be able to do this kind of thing, and anyone that’s studied business understands—or anyone that hasn’t studied business should probably understand the triple bottom line and corporate social responsibility, something I’m personally really passionate about. It is in a lot of our businesses’, if not all of our businesses’, best interests to do what’s right by our communities and our country. Unfortunately, unless we raise awareness and shine the light on this kind of situation, a lot of people can blindly purchase commodities in New Zealand not knowing the supply chain, not knowing the impact that things have had in their path to our dinner table, to our frames when we wear clothes—whatever it might be. When Kiwis buy products, they should, and they deserve to, know the origin of them. I was a high school student in the 2000s, and I watched China Blue—and this is no disrespect to the country mentioned in that title, but that was my observation, when I was in fabric technology, understanding the clothes we wear, where they come from, and what that means. Now, we talked a lot about the 8,000 people, and no doubt there are more, sadly, that suffer modern slavery in New Zealand, but it’s the people around the world that we continue to enable to be in this position that we don’t believe deserve to be. When we’re buying products that facilitate and support modern slavery, whether it’s what we wear or what we use, we deserve to know that, to call those organisations out, to encourage them to see it if they don’t see it, where they’re just looking for the best possible price on behalf of their consumer. This is something that we absolutely deserve to address, and I’m really looking forward to doing that. Can I also say, as well, what I’m looking forward to in addressing this through the select committee is hearing the very real difference that it’s going to make. A little something closer to home: this is not just migrant exploitation, this is not just supply chain; when I was managing a school bus company, I observed students in some remote communities, and some not so remote communities, who were kept out of school for various reasons, not travelling on the school bus when they should’ve been, who were then being, in some cases, used by their parents to work in spaces, whether they were illegal or not, for no employment. There was a benefit to them not being in school. This happens in New Zealand, and it might not even be something that the police are necessarily looking out for or is a part of that 8,000. There are broader impacts of this piece of legislation, and we talk about this being the starting point—the baby teeth, maybe, when we’re talking about the teeth that this has. I’m pleased to be a part of it; I know our committee is pleased to be a part of it as well. With that, I commend it to the House. Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū) (17:39): This is a very important issue, and I would march in the street on this issue—but that’s probably not saying much, because I would march in the street on lots of different issues. Like my colleagues, I want to acknowledge Camilla Belich and Greg Fleming for their work, the historic use of rule 288, bypassing the biscuit tin—this bill will go down in history for that, if nothing else. I want to say something about the basic principle at play here. I was staggered to hear the ACT Party member saying they’re not even going to support a bill that’s only about transparency and disclosure of modern slavery—slavery—in supply chains. I say to the people who are fans of free-market capitalism: if you want to have the free flow of capital around the world, for goodness’ sake, do something about maintaining social licence for that, like actually protecting some basic ethical standards, which is what this bill does. If you don’t, you risk losing public confidence and public support in the very system that you want. I think the Super Fund had a little lesson in this recently when the High Court found that they had not actually met their mandated legislative obligations to ensure that the investment of New Zealand Superannuation Funds should not be in things like Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories. What this bill does is it ensures that the supply chains that deliver products to New Zealanders should not rely on modern slavery. I wanted to just add to the debate a little bit of commentary about what we mean by “modern slavery”, and some colleagues have talked about the 8,000 people in New Zealand who suffer the most egregious forms of oppression, particularly in work, but internationally, what are we talking about? One of the biggest issues that campaigners have spotlighted in relation to modern slavery is the use of State-imposed forced labour in Xinjiang province in China—Xinjiang province, which produces about 20 percent of the world’s cotton consumption. Campaigners allege—the Chinese Government denies it, but campaigners allege and have produced evidence—that there are hundreds of thousands, if not more than a million, people engaged in State-imposed forced labour in Xinjiang province. North Korea is another obvious example where there is mass forced labour in action. The South-east Asian fishing industry, where hundreds of thousands of people find themselves in an industry which produces huge global seafood exports, including to the consumers of this country—they find themselves trapped at sea for months and months on end with no pay and their documents confiscated. In South Asia, there are many, many hundreds of thousands—in fact, many millions—of people who are trapped in debt servitude, bonded labour and child labour, and forced marriage in South Asia, including in India, where this country is in the process of finalising a trade agreement. That, folks, is what we’re talking about—those are the big ones, internationally, where millions and millions of people find themselves trapped in servitude and bonded labour. I’m looking forward to the discussions that we have at the Education and Workforce Committee on this bill, and I want to finish by saying that I suspect some of the most interesting discussion at the committee will turn on this issue of whether this bill goes far enough. Is it enough to impose transparency requirements—that businesses are required to report and disclose whether or not there is modern slavery in their supply chains? Or should they, and this is the big issue internationally on this issue, be required by law to undertake due diligence—that is, to find out and prevent or remedy the harms caused by modern slavery? Ken Roth, the former director of Human Rights Watch, is one of the international experts on this, and he was in New Zealand only days ago. He argues that due diligence should be the target, not just disclosure. CARL BATES (National—Whanganui) (17:44): Thank you, Mr Speaker. As has been said in this House already this evening, congratulations to the two members, our colleagues, who have brought this bill to the House this afternoon. I did try and attempt not to get up and make any political comment around that, though. However, unaccustomed as I am to making political statements in the House, I cannot sit here and not note that it is my colleague Greg Fleming, a member of the National-led Government, the National Party, that has actually got this to the House during our Government. Labour had the opportunity in 2021; they didn’t get it there, so well done Greg and well done to Camilla. I know that the two of you have worked closely to make this happen. There has been much said of Standing Order 288, which has been used to make this happen, and I might just note that I think it’s a little bit like a mountain that’s about 288 metres high to be able to use that clause. I’m sure it won’t become a regular occurrence, because it is a significant piece of legislation that’s enabled that Standing Order to be used. Modern slavery is abhorrent. We know that, we all agree to that, we appreciate that, and we don’t want it in our supply chain. The question here is: how do you know when it is, how far do you go to make sure it isn’t, and what is the responsibility in reality on companies that are going to be implementing this? I’ve shared, through the process, feedback to Greg Fleming as he’s developed the National Party’s contribution to this piece of legislation, having sat on the board of a company in Australia that was required by the Australian legislation to report under their version of what will soon be law here in New Zealand. It is a conversation that occurs around that table, of “Have we gone far enough visiting the factory in Vietnam? Do we actually know X, Y, or Z from that part of our supply chain in Europe? Are we sure the German manufacturers of the machinery we’re buying are clean?” I think it’s going to be important for the process, through the select committee and through the passing of this legislation and then the Government implementing it post that—hopefully later this year—to be clear with business where that line is. A saying that, I suppose, comes in the court space often: principles are expensive. This is a principle that it is fair to have a cost on, but we need to make sure that cost is realistic, that we are clear, and that we can ensure it can be practically implemented. Every cost that is incurred increases the cost of the supply chain, and ultimately of the products that New Zealanders are buying. There is a way to do this and make it practical and ensure that cost is minimised but the outcome is achieved, and I don’t think—I hope that no one takes offence or takes what I’ve just said out of context. It is about ensuring we get modern slavery out of our supply chains, but we have to make sure we manage the process of implementing that so that New Zealanders at the till are not paying more than they need to. The teeth in this piece of legislation is around the directors’ liability, so it will be interesting—I’m sure the Institute of Directors will submit on that. Again, we don’t want to have the wrong drivers of director activity around the boardroom table, and being clear where that line is for directors and understanding their director’s liability—ensuring they are clear on how they make sure they have not only complied with the letter but the spirit, at the same time as not going so far that it creates unnecessary compliance pressures on our companies here in New Zealand. It will be really important to the success of what I know is going to be a great piece of legislation on the book here as a result of the work that these two members have done. I commend it to the House. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): In reply, Greg Fleming. GREG FLEMING (National—Maungakiekie) (17:49): Thank you so much to every member of the House who has contributed to this. I appreciate the encouragement. I appreciate the already insightful comments on the bill. I particularly want to thank *Laura McClure for her very thoughtful comments. I want to observe two things: one is I love it when we have “Kumbaya” moments in this House—that’s why I love Treaty settlement days most of all—but we are a debating chamber for good reason. When we debate things and we debate them well and we debate them faithfully, we actually get better law and we get better policy. I think it’s good that we’ve got a thoughtful party that is not yet convinced by this. I accept— Laura McClure: You might convince us. GREG FLEMING: Yeah, exactly, and I heard Laura McClure very clearly when she said it is not modern slavery that she is in any way anything other than completely opposed to. It is that she has doubts as to whether the proposed legislation will actually be effective. Will it be a good use of people’s time? Will it be a good use of business time? That is the struggle I had myself. I was not immediately convinced by the merits of this legislation when I first saw it. That’s why, in my opening remarks, I mentioned my friend Selwyn Coles’ Master’s thesis and the work he did for that year at Oxford, really wrestling with that question—does this work?—and actually looking at dozens and hundreds of contacts around the world. His thoughtful conclusion was that, yes, it would add real value here in New Zealand. It was that work that persuaded me to push on with it. I hear those concerns, and I look forward over the coming months to addressing those concerns and seeing whether, come the third reading, we can as a full House be right behind this. Phil Twyford, thank you for your comments. You weren’t able to carry on towards the end, but I appreciate that you started to drill down into wanting to see due diligence. That is precisely what I want to see through this—precisely. Absolutely. I want to see companies doing annual due diligence on their operations and supply chains. It’s when they actually go to look that they identify things that they are usually horrified to find there. One recent example was from Country Road in Australia. As my colleague Carl Bates, the wonderful member for Whanganui, mentioned, regarding his experience on that board in Australia, there were a lot of doubters when the Australian legislation came in. Country Road did their check, and they were horrified to find that their main sock supply did actually have a clear instance of modern slavery. They were able to address it because of the requirement on them of this kind of reporting. Hon Phil Twyford: Will you require due diligence, not just disclosure? GREG FLEMING: Absolutely. Let’s make sure that, through the select committee process, we require it in there. To the select committee process, can I echo my colleague and friend Katie Nimon’s—who will chair the Education and Workforce Committee through this process—call for really thoughtful submissions. There has been a tendency that, during my brief time serving in this House, I’ve seen often quality and quantity get confused, get conflated, when it comes to select committees. The problem with that is twofold. Sometimes, of course, this is what people are wanting to do. You end up crowding out the really thoughtful submissions, but, secondly, you end up slowing the whole process down. We don’t want either of those things in this case. We want to make sure that the very best submissions and the most thoughtful quality comes through, and we don’t want to slow the process down, because—who knows?—we could be back here sooner otherwise. The sooner we can get this legislation in play, the sooner we can begin to seriously address modern slavery both here and, even more importantly, abroad. On that, I want to acknowledge again, as I did in my opening remarks and as did Camilla Belich as well, the extraordinary and relentless work of all those advocates we mentioned before. Without you, we literally wouldn’t be here. Those advocates include the likes of Rebekah Armstrong and Claire Gray, who represent World Vision and Tearfund. To those people who are passionate, can I encourage you to maybe look at sending your submissions to them so that they can collate them into really powerful, detailed, insightful submissions that come to our select committee. That would add the greatest help. Finally, can I say that each time I’ve looked up here over the last hour and I’ve seen those words “Modern Slavery Bill” scroll along the bottom of the screen—“First Reading, Modern Slavery Bill”—I can’t believe we’re actually here. Kia ora. A party vote was called for on the question, That the Modern Slavery Bill be now read a first time. Ayes 112 New Zealand National 49; New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; New Zealand First 8; Te Pāti Māori 5; Ferris. Noes 11 ACT New Zealand 11. Motion agreed to. Bill read a first time.