TINZ Submission to the Education and Workforce Committee 2026

Summary 

TINZ strongly condemns modern slavery in all its forms and supports the intentions of the Bill.

Modern slavery can occur in every industry and sector, from agriculture and fisheries to construction, healthcare, IT services, hospitality, manufacturing, and mining – often hiding in plain sight within an organisation’s supply chains. Factors such as poor governance, weak rule of law, inadequate labour protections, and socio-economic conditions like poverty significantly increase the risk of modern slavery.

The International Labour Organisation estimated that 50 million people were living in modern slavery in any given day in 2021.1 Of these people, 28 million were in forced labour. Worryingly, the number of people in forced labour is increasing and occurs predominantly in the private sector.

While it might be tempting to think that modern slavery is a problem confined to far-off locations, New Zealand is not immune to such practices. The Walk Free Foundation estimates that there are approximately 8,000 people in modern slavery in New Zealand. In 2020, New Zealand also saw its first criminal conviction for both human trafficking and dealing in slaves.

World Vision estimated that last year, the average New Zealand household spent $77 per week on goods likely made through child labour and/or forced labour – that equates to nearly $8 billion a year. 10 percent of New Zealand’s imports in 2023 were likely harvested, mined, or produced using modern slavery.

Putting aside the moral importance of combatting modern slavery, modern slavery often overlaps with fraud, corruption, and weak internal controls – all key areas of concern for TINZ. In the words of the New South Wales Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Dr James Cockayne, modern slavery leaves us all worse off as it represents a system failure that:

• breeds poverty;
• reduces productivity;
• institutionalises inequality;
• weakens economic multipliers;
• discourages innovation;
• distorts capital markets;
• impacts government revenue and spending;
• weakens governance;
• breeds corruption; and
• often harms the environment.

In terms of some preliminary comments, it is important to be clear about the purpose of the Bill and what the Bill is trying to achieve. The Bill as currently drafted would require in-scope entities to report on due diligence but does not itself impose a free-standing duty to undertake due diligence. Similarly, liability attaches to failures in reporting, not to the underlying exploitation (which are largely already addressed by domestic criminal law).

Within the international context of modern slavery legislation, the Bill falls within the category of supply chain transparency legislation (i.e. creating a reporting/disclosure obligation). In this regard, the Bill is similar to the United Kingdom’s Modern Slavery Act 2015 (UK) and Australia'sModern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth), rather than to the substantive due diligence regimes operating in the European Union (and other European jurisdictions).

As currently drafted, the Bill is an important step to overcome stalled progress on modern slavery legislation in New Zealand, and in our view, when passed the Bill will assist in combatting modern slavery by better enabling:

• organisations to make informed decisions about the risk of modern slavery in their operations and supply chains;
• consumers to make informed decisions about the risk of modern slavery in their purchasing decisions of goods and services;
• prosecutions to occur through increased reporting of modern slavery incidents; and 
• victim support and remediation to occur through increased transparency of modern slavery risks.

Notwithstanding the above, whilst TINZ is supportive of the Bill, we have some concerns with aspects of the current drafting and believe the Bill can be strengthened further to provide a more effective framework for addressing modern slavery.

TINZ congratulates the Members of Parliament supporting the Bill, and in particular Labour MP Camilla Belich and National MP Greg Fleming for developing the Bill and steering it through cross-party support.

We also recognise the group of leading human rights activists who in December 2024 released an important report “'Building Consensus: A comprehensive Framework for Combating Trafficking in Persons and Modern Slavery in New Zealand."

Read TINZ’s complete submission on the 2026 Modern Slavery Bill.

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