Strengthening Australia’s legislative response to modern slavery in supply chains
Submission Date: 6 October 2026
The Law Council of Australia supports measures to strengthen Australia’s response to modern slavery and considers that corporations should meaningfully identify, prevent, mitigate and address modern slavery risks in their operations and supply chains. Such measures should also be consistent with established international standards, including the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct,1 which recognise that companies that cause or contribute to the harms of modern slavery have a duty to remediate them.
The Australian Government’s proposed failure to prevent modern slavery offence should be carefully considered to promote prevention, accountability and legal certainty. If progressed as proposed, it should have clear and appropriately defined statutory elements supported by practical guidance and drafted to complement existing modern slavery and criminal law frameworks, including to build on progress made by reporting entities. Importantly, it must also be considered in the context of the broader reforms on which the Attorney-General’s Department is consulting, including mandatory human rights due diligence and a robust civil penalty regime. The proposed offence should not be considered a substitute for mandatory human rights due diligence and should be framed in a manner that promotes meaningful due diligence.
Alternatively, the Department may wish to consider a graduated approach to reform, beginning with a civil penalty framework followed by review of its effectiveness before introducing any criminal offence. This would support evidence-based law reform and consistency with established criminal law principles.
The Law Council has previously supported a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) scheme tailored to Australian circumstances. If adopted in the modern slavery context, any DPA scheme should seek to encourage self-reporting, cooperation and remediation, while incorporating appropriate safeguards, oversight and accountability. It should not become the default response to offending, nor should it diminish access to remedies otherwise available to victim-survivors.
The Law Council emphasises that effective civil remedies for victim-survivors must remain a central consideration in reforms to Australia’s modern slavery framework. Criminal liability alone is unlikely to provide meaningful redress. Consideration should therefore be given to strengthening civil remedies and improving access to justice for victim-survivors of modern slavery, including through purpose-built civil causes of action, where appropriate.
1 United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework (Report, 2011); Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct (Report, 2023).
Last Updated on 08/10/2026
Share
Tags
Most recent items
Trending Items
Law Council
National Public Register of Child Sex Offenders
Business Law Section