Australia’s anti-slavery commissioner has called for tough new laws forcing Australian companies to take slavery in their supply chains seriously.

Chris Evans told the ABC existing laws, which only required disclosure of slavery risks, had proven too weak, with too many Australian companies taking a “tick-a-box” approach to compliance.

The commissioner works with governments, businesses and other stakeholders to prevent and respond to slavery, including forced labour and debt bondage (when people are forced to work to repay debts).

Mr Evans warned Australia was falling behind key markets such as Europe when it came to stamping out slavery, saying the country was already becoming a dumping ground for slave-made goods that could not be sold elsewhere.

The lack of effective Australian laws would also make it more difficult to sell our goods into markets with strong anti-slavery laws, he said.

“There’s pressure on us to do better anyway, particularly for those companies who trade with Europe or whose goods go to Europe, but increasingly we’re seeing [the] UK, New Zealand [and] others looking to move as well, and effectively it’s time for us to move,” he said.

His call comes amid concerns forced labour may be used in the supply chains of two big Australian companies, glove-maker Ansell and budget retailer Kmart.

Ansell has been embroiled in controversy over allegations of slavery in its supply chain for years, most recently over a supplier in Malaysia that made moulds for its gloves using workers from Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, a group of Uyghur women took Kmart to court last week seeking to discover whether Chinese factories that made its cotton garments used slave labour.

Mr Evans raised concerns about the treatment of workers at Ansell’s Malaysian supplier, Mediceram, after the ABC reported on the case in November.

Laws not about ‘ticking the box’

In an interview with the ABC, the anti-slavery commissioner declined to speak about any specific cases but said that while some companies were doing a good job finding and eliminating slavery in their supply chains, a lot of companies were “not taking it seriously”.

“Effectively, the current law is voluntary,” Mr Evans said.

“People are asked to report but they don’t actually have any penalties if they don’t report and there’s no measurement of the quality of what’s done.

“Some just give us one page … saying, ‘Our company has a very strong policy, we’re opposed to slavery, thank you very much.’

“That’s not what the law was about.”

In a submission to a government review, Mr Evans said Australian companies should have a duty to perform due diligence to detect and combat slavery in their supply chains.

It would operate in a similar manner to duties companies already had to fight money laundering and terrorism finance, Mr Evans told the ABC.

He also wants the power to declare certain industries, products or services high risk, which would force Australian companies to increase the due diligence carried out when importing such goods.

“What we would be able to do is say, ‘Alright … the garment industry, seafood, these are high-risk areas for modern slavery.'”

Ansell supplier accused of wage theft, forced labour

About 200 Bangladeshi nationals who worked at Ansell supplier Mediceram paid big fees to brokers in Bangladesh to get to Malaysia.

But relations between the workers and Mediceram broke down last year.

In a complaint filed with Australian authorities on behalf of the workers, activist Andy Hall accused Mediceram of wage theft, forced labour and confiscating passports.

“They’re facing a situation of, I guess, systemic forced labour stemming from debt bondage from the recruitment costs they paid to come in from Bangladesh,” Mr Hall told the ABC.

After the initial flare-up, the company agreed to pay remediation to the workers for the broker fees they had paid.

But the dispute erupted again after workers accused the company of breaking the deal and went on strike.

In response, the company began deporting workers.

Mafizur was one of the earliest to go. Before he was deported, he recorded a video pleading for help from Mediceram customers.

He said the company had arranged his flight — but not paid his money.

“Without paying my money, how do I go to Bangladesh?” he asked.

“I have many, many bank loans. Now I want to suicide.

“Without money I cannot go back.”

Mr Hall, campaigning for those affected, told the ABC the majority of workers, including Mafizur, had been deported but about 30 workers had been left behind.

“I think it’s clear that Ansell is responsible for this situation,” he said.

“From what we understand, they didn’t do effective due diligence — even maybe they didn’t do any due diligence at all — before they started sourcing from the company, even though the risks of forced labour amongst Bangladeshi workers are so high in Malaysia.

“Their whole system for assessing risk … preventing forced labour and remediating forced labour, needs to be completely overhauled as a result of this case.”

Ansell said it did undertake due diligence, including third-party audits of suppliers.

Mr Hall said the risks of sourcing from companies in Malaysia that used Bangladeshi labour were well-known.

“This is so well-known, and any company that sources products from Malaysia and those products are manufactured in any way using Bangladeshi workers is clearly complicit in that system.”

Mediceram has declared itself insolvent and appointed liquidators.

Its chairman, Arumugam Suppiah, blamed Mr Hall for the dispute and the company’s collapse.

“Andy Hall has managed to destroy Mediceram and in the process damaged the reputation of Bangladesh as a reliable source of labour,” he told the ABC.

“Malaysia has robust laws to protect against human trafficking.

“As Andy Hall knows, the abuse is at [the] source in Bangladesh, and Malaysian companies are directed to get workers from designated agents.

“Any genuine compassion for workers should also apply to the Malaysian workers who are unemployed because of the relentless false propaganda by Andy Hall.”

In a statement, Ansell said it acted swiftly after being told of serious labour rights allegations against Mediceram in March last year.

It said it had provided financial assistance to help Mediceram reimburse workers about $US1 million ($1.4 million).

“Despite these sustained efforts by Ansell, relations between Mediceram and its migrant workers broke down in October 2025. Mediceram terminated the workers’ employment and began repatriating them to Bangladesh,” the company said.

“Ansell advised Mediceram that the terminations were not appropriate and took the difficult but appropriate decision to suspend the relationship.”

It said it was now supporting the workers with food aid and to get home to Bangladesh.

Uyghur community takes Kmart to court

At $10, Kmart’s own-brand T-shirts are a bargain.

But Australia’s Uyghur community fears that behind the cheap price lurks slavery.

For years the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority community that mostly lives in the north-western autonomous region of Xinjiang, have been persecuted by the Chinese government.

Millions of Uyghurs are detained and transferred to work camps in what the government claims is an anti-terrorism measure.

But last month, UN experts said the program enabled forced labour and in many cases, the coercive elements were “so severe that they may amount to forcible transfer and/or enslavement as a crime against humanity”.

Last week, the Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women’s Association (AUTWA) took Kmart to the Federal Court seeking documents about two suppliers linked to Xinjiang.

It wants to know if the suppliers are using Uyghur slave labour.

“Since 2017, we’ve had credible reports of millions of Uyghurs being detained and taken into concentration camps, which are later funnelled into labour camps,” AUTWA president Ramila Chanisheff told the ABC.

“We’re very concerned because we all do have families, all Australian Uyghurs have family members, who have disappeared, and there’s credible evidence of them being taken into these labour camps to work and make the very products that are entering into this country.”

Human Rights Law Centre (HWLC) and law firm Maurice Blackburn are supporting AUTWA in the case.

HRLC associate director Freya Dinshaw told the ABC that where there were suspicions of links to forced labour “it simply shouldn’t be up to members of the public to take companies to court and force them to open their books”.

She supported the anti-slavery commissioner’s push for a due diligence law.

“Australian companies should have a duty to take steps to investigate and address … slavery in their supply chains and face hard consequences if they don’t,” she said.

A Kmart spokesperson said the company was “committed to upholding human rights within our operations and supply chains”.

“We are disappointed that despite numerous invitations, the AUTWA and its lawyers refused to meet to clarify their concerns and chose to apply to the court to compel Kmart to produce a vast range of documents, the purpose of which was unclear,” the spokesperson said.

“We welcome discussions with any organisation raising credible concerns, so that we may take appropriate action to investigate and address them in accordance with our policies and commitments.”

AUTWA’s solicitors, Maurice Blackburn, told the ABC the group “commenced this court proceeding only after spending more than 12 months explaining to Kmart its legitimate concerns about two of its suppliers and seeking documents held by Kmart, which go to the relevant issues”.

“It is only because of Kmart’s refusals to provide AUTWA with any of the documents that AUTWA commenced a proceeding in the Federal Court.”

The court has reserved its decision.

Too cheap to be ‘slave-free’?

Slavery expert Fiona David said Australians should consider whether some of the things they bought were just too cheap to be slave-free.

“I think we do have to think about what is a reasonable price range that consumers should be paying, and what are the systems and processes that we require companies to have so that consumers know that what they’re buying is not based on exploitation?”

She said there also needed to be a way to stop slave-made goods at the border.

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The anti-slavery commissioner, Mr Evans, also wants border controls, but they are not under consideration by the government in its current review.

He told the ABC the sale of slave-made goods was already a significant issue Australia  — and it could get worse.

“I think it’s started already, but certainly I think we’re at risk of becoming seriously impacted by unlawful or poor practise suppliers selling their goods into the Australian market because they can’t get into other markets,” he said.