[co-author: Georgina Hatch]

The beginning of 2022 has marked the commencement of the third reporting season under the Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) (Act). All eligible entities operating on the Australian financial year should have submitted their second modern slavery statement by the end of December 2021. Those operating on a calendar financial year are due to submit their second statements by 30 June 2022.

The Act requires organisations registered or carrying on business in Australia, and with a consolidated revenue of at least $100 million, to report annually in a modern slavery statement on how they are addressing the risks of modern slavery in their supply chain and operations (Statements). These Statements are lodged on a publicly accessible register held and managed by the Australian Border Force.

Snapshot of Statements submitted to date
We have conducted an analysis of the modern slavery statements submitted thus far. As at the date of publishing, 6,222 entities and two Commonwealth bodies have submitted modern slavery statements (3,799 mandatory and 528 voluntary) headquartered across 42 different countries. Below are pictorial snapshots we have prepared showing the origin countries of the organisations reporting in Australia and their industry sectors.

Countries where headquartered:

Industries of reporting entities:

Over the coming days, we will be sharing our insights into best practice reporting against the mandatory criteria and where further work by Australian reporting entities is needed. In our next post, we will share our analysis of what leading businesses are doing to meet their obligations under the Act and to implement robust modern slavery reporting frameworks.