Modern Slavery Statement (Australia)

A Modern Slavery Statement in Australia is a legally binding written instrument.

At its core, a Modern Slavery Statement is a transparency instrument. It does not directly prohibit modern slavery in supply chains — rather, it requires entities above a certain revenue threshold to publicly disclose how they are identifying, assessing, and addressing the risks of modern slavery in their operations and supply chains. The underlying theory is that public transparency creates accountability: when investors, customers, and the media can see exactly what an entity is doing (or not doing) to combat modern slavery, market and reputational pressures incentivise improved practices over time.

Under section 5 of the Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth), an entity is a reporting entity required to prepare an annual statement if it is an Australian entity or a foreign entity that carries on business in Australia, and its annual consolidated revenue is at least $100 million. The consolidated revenue threshold captures not just the entity itself but all entities it controls, meaning a parent company whose subsidiaries together exceed $100 million must report even if the parent alone does not meet the threshold. Both private sector entities and Australian Government entities are subject to the Act.

The seven mandatory criteria set out in section 16(1) of the Act define the content of a compliant statement. The statement must: identify the reporting entity; describe its structure, operations, and supply chains; describe the risks of modern slavery practices in those operations and supply chains (including owned and controlled entities and supply chain partners); describe the actions taken to assess and address those risks, including due diligence and remediation processes; describe how the entity assesses the effectiveness of those actions; describe the consultation process with owned or controlled entities; and include any other relevant information.

Modern slavery itself is defined broadly in section 4 of the Act to encompass eight serious exploitative practices: trafficking in persons; slavery; servitude; forced marriage; forced labour; debt bondage; deceptive recruiting for labour or services; and the worst forms of child labour as defined under the International Labour Organization's Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour 1999 (Convention 182). These practices involve the severe exploitation of people through coercion, deception, abuse of power, or abuse of vulnerability, and can occur in any industry or country.

The statement must be approved by the entity's principal governing body — such as the Board of Directors — and signed by a responsible member of that body under section 16(2). This Board-level sign-off requirement is deliberate: it confirms that modern slavery governance is elevated to the highest level of organisational accountability, rather than being treated as a compliance exercise delegated to middle management.

Completed statements must be submitted to the Australian Government's Modern Slavery Statements Register, administered by the Department of Home Affairs, within six months after the end of the entity's reporting period under section 14. The Register is publicly accessible online, allowing anyone — including investors conducting ESG due diligence, journalists investigating supply chain abuses, procurement officers, and advocacy organisations — to view and compare the statements of reporting entities. The Act is administered by the Department of Home Affairs and the Australian Border Force, which may publish statements identifying non-compliant entities under section 19, creating significant reputational consequences for organisations that fail to meet their reporting obligations.

A Modern Slavery Statement is required whenever an organisation meets the reporting entity threshold under the Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) — that is, an annual consolidated revenue of at least $100 million where the entity is an Australian entity or a foreign entity carrying on business in Australia. The obligation arises annually: a new statement must be prepared and submitted for each financial year in which the entity remains a reporting entity, meaning this is an ongoing compliance obligation rather than a one-time exercise.

The most common scenario requiring a statement is a large Australian company or corporate group that sources goods or services from global supply chains. This is particularly relevant in industries with well-documented modern slavery risks, including garment and textile manufacturing (particularly in South and Southeast Asia), electronics and technology hardware manufacturing (particularly in East Asia), agriculture and food processing, construction and infrastructure, cleaning and facility management services, and logistics and warehousing. Organisations in these industries frequently rely on multiple tiers of suppliers, labour-hire firms, and contract manufacturers operating in jurisdictions with weaker labour law protections, creating genuine risks of exploitation at lower tiers of the supply chain.

Foreign entities carrying on business in Australia — including multinational corporations with significant Australian operations — are also required to report if they meet the revenue threshold. A foreign company that has Australian subsidiaries, employs staff in Australia, or derives substantial revenue from Australian operations is generally considered to be carrying on business in Australia for the purposes of the Act.

Australian Government entities — including Commonwealth departments, agencies, and government business enterprises — are also within scope, reflecting the government's own significant procurement spend and the importance of demonstrating leadership in combating modern slavery in public sector supply chains.

Smaller entities below the $100 million threshold are not legally required to report but may choose to submit a voluntary statement. This is particularly relevant for businesses that supply to large reporting entities (which may impose contractual modern slavery obligations on their supply chains) or that wish to demonstrate ESG credentials to investors and customers.

For most Australian entities with a 30 June financial year end, the statement must be submitted to the Modern Slavery Statements Register by 31 December of the same calendar year. Entities with different financial year ends must calculate their submission deadline based on their actual reporting period. The statement must also be made publicly available, typically by publishing it on the entity's website in addition to submitting it to the Register.

Beyond strict legal compliance, organisations increasingly prepare Modern Slavery Statements as part of broader ESG frameworks, investor disclosure requirements, and supply chain due diligence programmes. Australian superannuation funds and institutional investors are under growing pressure from beneficiaries to demonstrate credible action on modern slavery risks in their investment portfolios and procurement chains, making strong modern slavery reporting a matter of investor relations as much as legal compliance.

A well-drafted Modern Slavery Statement under the Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) must thoroughly address each of the seven mandatory criteria in section 16(1), while reflecting genuine engagement with the entity's actual modern slavery risks rather than merely reciting generic compliance language. The Department of Home Affairs' annual reports and guidance documents consistently highlight the gap between minimum compliance and best-practice disclosure.

The first mandatory element is entity identification. The statement must clearly identify the reporting entity, including its full legal name, ABN or ACN, registered address, and the nature of its business. Where the statement is a joint statement covering multiple entities in a corporate group, each entity covered must be individually identified. A joint statement can satisfy the reporting obligations of multiple related entities simultaneously, provided all are clearly named and the Board of each approves the statement.

The second mandatory element is a detailed description of the entity's structure, operations, and supply chains. Best-practice statements include an organisational structure chart, a description of key business activities and operating locations across jurisdictions, and a supply chain map identifying key product and service categories, primary supplier countries, and the approximate number of tiers in the supply chain. The more transparent and detailed this section, the more credible the risk assessment that follows.

The third mandatory element — risk identification — is often where statements fall short of best practice. A credible risk assessment should go beyond generic statements and instead identify specific categories of modern slavery risk (for example, forced labour in raw material extraction, debt bondage among migrant workers in manufacturing, or child labour in agricultural inputs), map those risks to specific supply chain tiers and geographies, and reference recognised risk data sources such as the Global Slavery Index published by the Walk Free Foundation and country-specific human rights reports from Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The fourth mandatory element — actions taken — should describe concrete, evidence-based steps taken during the reporting period. This includes supplier due diligence processes (questionnaires, desktop assessments, on-site audits, third-party audits), training programmes for procurement and sourcing staff, contractual modern slavery clauses in supplier agreements, engagement with supplier capability-building programmes, participation in industry initiatives such as the Responsible Business Alliance or Sedex, and any grievance or worker voice mechanisms accessible to supply chain workers.

The fifth mandatory element is an effectiveness assessment. Rather than simply asserting that actions are effective, the entity must explain how it measures whether its efforts are actually reducing modern slavery risks. Useful metrics include the number and percentage of suppliers who have completed due diligence questionnaires, the outcomes of supplier audits (including any corrective action plans issued or supplier relationships terminated), the number of grievances received through worker voice mechanisms, and year-on-year comparisons showing improvement.

The sixth mandatory element requires a description of the Board consultation process — specifically, how owned and controlled entities were consulted in preparing the statement. The seventh element allows for any additional relevant information, including future commitments, collaborations with civil society organisations, and engagement with affected communities.

All statements must be approved by the Board and signed by a responsible member — typically the Chair or CEO — under section 16(2). The statement should be reviewed and updated annually, with each successive statement demonstrating genuine year-on-year improvement in the entity's modern slavery governance maturity. ASIC also provides relevant guidance for publicly listed companies on integrating modern slavery disclosures into broader corporate governance and continuous disclosure obligations.

Under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) regulates companies and financial services. Section 127 of the Corporations Act 2001 governs company execution of documents. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) enforces the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth). The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) administers the Goods and Services Tax under the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999. The Federal Court of Australia and Supreme Courts of each state have jurisdiction over corporate disputes. The forms-legal.com Modern Slavery Statement (Australia) template covers the mandatory elements under Corporations Act 2001 (Cth).