Anti-slavery law uses new rules to bypass ballot

Government bills can be debated at will. Member's bills rely on luck. The Modern Slavery Bill might have been adopted as a government bill, but an apparent ACT-shaped roadblock was in the way. The Bill's co-sponsor Greg Fleming tactfully described the problem to MPs as "political reasons".

Those "political reasons" would usually force a policy compromise or relegate a bill into the Members' Bill biscuit tin ballot, where bills can languish for years-if they are chosen at all.

But a somewhat new addition to Parliament's rules allows a bill with very wide non-ministerial support to skip to the front of the queue. The Modern Slavery Bill is the first legislation to successfully use this bypass route under Standing Order 288.

The Bill's other co-sponsor, Labour MP Camilla Belich, thanked the core parties behind the move (National, Labour and the Greens) for getting it over the threshold, saying she wished for much more cooperation in future. The bill eventually had support from all parties other than ACT.

"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."

The Bill

Modern slavery, said Belich is "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."

The problem is global, with some "50 million people who are trapped in modern slavery… 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."

A quarter of those 50 million people are children, while two thirds of modern slaves live in the Asia-Pacific region. Because we trade heavily with the Asia-Pacific, Belich says we have a responsibility to "play a leadership role within that region".

The Bill is aimed at large companies with revenue above $100 million. Its explanatory note says it "requires reporting entities to report on how they identify, address, mitigate, and remediate incidents of modern slavery (including trafficking in persons) within their operations and supply chains. It creates offences for failing to meet the reporting requirements."

Modern slavery is defined in the legislation as a wide variety of behaviours including debt-bondage, trafficking, forced or exploitative labour, servitude, sexual exploitation, and slavery.

The Bill will also require the responsible minister to produce an annual report enumerating such things as the number of investigations, victims, and prosecutions for slavery-related offences.

A number of comparable jurisdictions (EU, UK, Australia) have similar legislation. Greg Fleming told MPs that there were doubters in Australia about their own legislation, but requiring due diligence has had beneficial outcomes across the ditch.

"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."

"Political reasons"

All parties in the House voted in favour of the Bill except ACT. While Greg Fleming had been tactful in describing "political reasons", Green MP Teanau Tuiono was less subtle.

"Good on Greg Fleming and good on Camilla Belich for going around [ACT minister] 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."

ACT left that task to its Education Spokesperson Laura McClure, who began with a defence of ACT's approach to the topic of slavery before moving on to attack the Bill.

"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."

McClure argued the Bill was the perfect example of Milton Friedman's warning about good intentions over good results. She criticised the bill as not good policy, saying that the focus should be on local slavery as opposed to slavery in the foreign supply lines of big companies. She argued that there is already legislation covering local slavery.

"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."

She did not claim there had been no discussion among ministers, but only that the two sponsors had not spoken with her or "a lot of my colleagues".

While ACT demurred, all the other parties were enthusiastic.

The question of who was for or against and why might be considered a distraction from this historic first use of SO 288. The new rule arguably removes a little oomph from the veto-power that minor coalition parties can wield against their larger partners inside a government coalition.

The rule: Standing Order 288

• Standing Order 288 says that if 61 MPs sign on to support a members bill it is introduced.
• None of that support can come from Ministers or Cabinet Under-secretaries, it must all come from backbench MPs. If the wider cabinet of 30 is not counted, that requires 61 of the currently 93 backbench MPs that are eligible.
• Which MPs have signed on to support a Member's Bill can be seen on that bill's page on the Parliament website.
• When the total support reaches 61 MPs, Parliament's Clerk informs all MPs that the bill will be introduced the next sitting day.
• Support can be withdrawn until 1pm on the day the bill is to be introduced (roughly an hour before).

More information

• The Modern Slavery Bill has been referred to the Education and Workforce Select Committee for consideration. They will ask for public submissions.
• The bill's info page at the parliament website.
• Read how to make a submission.
• Read the bill at the Legislation Website.
• Read the Hansard report of the First Reading debate.
• Read Standing Order 288.

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