The evidence that a lot of the things we buy in Australia were made under coercive conditions continues to grow, yet we still have no laws against importing products from places where the exploitation occurs.

Instead, we leave it up to big companies to tell us how well they’re doing at making sure they don’t have modern slavery in their supply chains.

Under the current system, companies with $100 million or more in annual revenue are required to undergo an annual self-evaluation of the risks of forced labour in their supply chains and explain the steps they’re taking to mitigate these risks.

For many companies, these modern slavery reports have turned into tick-the-box exercises. There’s no penalty if the reports are poor quality, or if they’re not filed at all.

Anti-slavery framework under review

Members of the federal government are aware of the shortcomings. Earlier this year, Australia’s Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Chris Evans, recommended a number of improvements to Australia’s anti-slavery framework, which is currently under review.

They are more incremental than structural, and include giving the Anti-Slavery Commissioner the power to declare that a particular product, service, or industry carries a high risk of being involved in modern slavery.

This designation would mean companies doing business in these areas would have to specifically address how they’re managing the heightened risks. They would also be required to exercise due diligence in ridding their supply chains of forced labour.

“We have known for years that the Modern Slavery Act’s transparency measures alone have not created meaningful impact for exploited workers. Currently, reporting is mandatory but taking action is not, leaving workers exposed and responsible businesses disadvantaged,” Evans says.

One in five of imports under suspicion

Meanwhile, consumer goods with a probable connection to forced labour continue to pour into the country.

In February this year,  Australian anti-slavery group the Walk Free Foundation and supply chain management firm Fair Supply released the findings of a research project based on 2024 import data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

It found that 21.5% of all goods imported into Australia that year were from countries and regions with known forced labour issues, including 89% of all apparel and clothing.

Many other everyday goods – including phones, computers, footwear and vehicle parts – were also found to be at risk of being manufactured by exploited workers in these regions, the Walk Free Foundation reports. The combined value of these imports was $98.6 billion.

(The exporting countries in question were China, Malaysia, India, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Brazil, Argentina, Nepal and Japan.)

Anti-slavery expert and founder of the Australian human rights governance advisory service Fair Futures, Fiona David, says the research is further evidence that the Australian government must do more.

“Forced labour permeates Australian supply chains and exposes businesses and consumers to products made with forced labour,” David says.

“While the Modern Slavery Act has helped very large companies to begin focusing on this issue, the government still has more work to do, both to set the rules but also [to] provide the tools that businesses need to undertake the kind of due diligence that will lead to real change.”

Reforms to the Act are also needed to level the playing field for businesses that do take steps to ensure their supply chains are slavery free, David says. Putting greater pressure on companies to avoid sourcing from high-risk countries and regions would also facilitate cross-industry collaboration, she points out.

In countries such as the Netherlands and Germany, for instance, governments support initiatives that bring businesses together to collaborate on responsible sourcing, something that has yet to occur in Australia.

Other countries are cracking down

The supply chains of multinational companies stretch far and wide and often include many hundreds of suppliers. As of May 2025, for instance, Kmart Australia had 856 businesses in its supply chain, many of which have thousands of employees. Transparency around working conditions in supplier factories for large companies like Kmart has long been lacking.

But overseas, major companies are increasingly being asked to prove they have nothing to hide.

In December last year, for instance, police in Italy paid a visit to the headquarters of 13 high-end fashion firms, including big names such as Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, Prada, Ferragamo, Givenchy Italia, Alexander McQueen Italia, Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent.

The authorities were investigating the possible exploitation of workers at the firms’ subcontractors and demanded documentation of supply chains. It was a warning shot more than an enforcement action, though five other high-end brands in Italy were placed under court-appointed administration due to links to forced labour following an earlier investigation. 

In May 2025, the UK Supreme Court rejected an application by the appliance manufacturer Dyson to appeal a lawsuit brought by Nepalese and Bangladeshi workers who claimed they were subject to forced labour and false imprisonment while working at Malaysian factories that supplied Dyson.

The groundbreaking case means Dyson will potentially be held responsible in the English courts for what goes on in its overseas supplier factories.

Similarly, eight Brazilian workers filed a lawsuit against Starbucks in the US in April 2025, saying they had been subject to forced labour and human trafficking by a Starbucks supplier (the case is ongoing).

Along with legal and government actions, reports of labour exploitation continue to pile up.

In January this year, the New York-based not-for-profit advocacy group China Labor Watch published the findings of its investigation of a factory in China employing around 4500 workers that manufactures Labubu dolls. The report cited excessive overtime and a lack of adequate health and safety protections, among other issues.

Earlier this year, ����Vlog reported on the efforts by indigenous community groups to stop logging companies from destroying forests in Malaysia. For years, a significant portion of the resulting wood products have been exported to Australia.

What needs to change?

Fair Futures is calling on the federal government to enact several reforms, including:

• An outright ban on the importation of goods to Australia produced with forced labour or slavery.
• Due diligence laws requiring businesses to take reasonable steps to respond to known risks of forced labour.
• Government-backed, multi-stakeholder initiatives to encourage cross-industry collaboration on clean supply chains.

“Without these, the burden is left to consumers to attempt to unravel the provenance of every good and service they buy, in an effort to understand risk exposure,” David says. 

In her view, state and federal governments have tools at their disposal that they’re not using.

“Governments can use their control over imports to drive up traceability of products, and increase access to high quality, reliable information about risk that enables businesses to act responsibly. Governments can also create safe spaces where businesses can come together with civil society and other experts, to build leverage and find ways to build cleaner supply chains.”

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Losing your economic footing makes you a prime target for exploitation, especially if you’ve already been victimised. That’s the consensus among 18 survivors of forced labour, human trafficking and other forms of modern slavery in Australia, as captured in a new report put out by a coalition of advocacy groups.

What’s unique about the report – called Learning from Experience and produced by Survivor Connections, Project Respect and Fair Futures – is that it’s based almost entirely on the firsthand views of these survivors.

Their successful escape from coerced servitude, they say, depended greatly on economic empowerment. In practical terms, that meant having reliable access to a place to live, work environments that took their previous trauma into account, education, financial guidance and peer support.

Strip away one or more of these lifelines as survivors struggle to rebuild their lives and the predatory bosses will be waiting to once again take advantage.

As one survivor involved in the project puts it: “Economic empowerment to me means that no one has power over you because of poverty or disadvantage. It means that you can thrive instead of fighting just to survive. It means when people do bad things to you, you have a way to do something about it.”

Another says: “If you have your own money, then you can live in your own place, you have your own control. I think just having access to resources and being able to be independent really changes everything.”

‘Need to be a part of the conversation’

These survivors have another critical message: the approaches that governments are currently taking to stop the continuing cycle of modern slavery in Australia simply aren’t working.

Director of Survivor Connections Sarah Schricker – who is herself a survivor – says “this project was born out of the need to be a part of the conversations about our economic recovery and empowerment, rather than just being the subjects of them”.

CEO of Fair Futures Fiona David says first-hand knowledge of what it takes to recover from exploitation should inform all anti-slavery efforts.

“Participants talked about major financial burdens they carried after their exploitation, such as having lost apartments they had owned, or being saddled with large debts related to their exploitation,” says David.

“Some described having to live constantly on the move, in their car with their children, either for safety reasons or for lack of housing. These are fixable issues that need to be urgently addressed.”

A five-point plan for reform

The report makes five key recommendations for reforming the way governments and other organisations deal with modern slavery.

1. Services for survivors of modern slavery should focus on restoring functional economic autonomy.
2. All anti-slavery efforts should be informed and guided by people with lived experience.
3. Support services should be expanded to focus on early intervention and prevention as well as long-term recovery.
4. Sustainable economic recovery for survivors should be embedded in all support programs.
5. Anti-slavery efforts across the board should be responsive to the trauma experienced by victims.

Executive director of Project Respect Carolyn Gowers says extensive consultation with people who have been victims is essential to making progress.

“It was important to us that the design of this project was truly survivor-led, to support unrestrained truth telling from survivors. Survivors responded, and were clear that they wanted their experiences known in order to influence positive system change. It is now up to all of us to make this change happen.”

Survivor Connections director of operations Matilda Constable-Webb says “prevention starts when systems listen. This report proves what happens when survivors are not just the subject of research, they are also the co-authors of solutions”.

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The chaos and desperation following a natural disaster always brings out society’s best – people willing to pitch in and help those whose worlds have been turned upside down.

Unfortunately, these situations also bring out the worst – criminals who see a chance to steal, not just from people whose lives are already in disarray, but even from the fellow citizens coming to their aid.

The aftermath of previous storms, floods and fires in Australia revealed that scammers have particular schemes they’ll often deploy during these crises.

Whether you find yourself directly impacted by a natural disaster or you’re just looking to support relief efforts, here are the common scams to look out for during and after fires, floods and storms.

On this page:

• Shonky tradies
• Finance impersonators
• Government phishing
• Fake fundraisers

Shonky tradies

Unregistered tradespeople promising quick clean-ups, inspections and repairs have been known to target areas hit by wild weather.

In NSW, the state’s Building Commission received almost 160 reports of unregistered trade work in the first half of this year.

Described by insurance companies as “disaster chasers”, fake tradies have been known to approach damaged properties, promising to do whatever work is required there and then – in return for a fee, of course.

They’re known for deploying high-pressure and aggressive sales tactics to try to get you to agree.

Recent reports relay stories of these con artists also impersonating legitimate local businesses and responding to requests for help on social media.

Once they’ve secured payment (often by unusual methods like bank transfer or cheque), they may leave without providing any of the services they’ve promised.

If work is done, insurers say it’s often substandard and not covered by their guarantees, meaning property owners may have a hard time getting insurance in the future.

How to avoid shonky tradie scams

1. Beware of unexpected guests

Watch out for workers turning up to your property unannounced, claiming it has a problem and offering to fix it for you. Be especially sceptical if they claim to work for your insurance company. Major providers say they’ll never send assessors or workers to your property without arranging it with you first.

2. Try your rights

People going door to door selling services should be able to give you a written agreement on what will be provided. Unregistered tradies are unlikely to provide this, along with any clear quote for costs or even contact details. Beware of anyone trying to avoid giving you these assurances.

3. Verify visitors

Repair scammers sometimes claim to represent legitimate local businesses and to have successfully completed work on other homes nearby. Follow-up on these claims.

Call your insurer if you’re suspicious about a tradesperson who’s come to your home on their behalf. You can ask to see the worker’s credentials and check that they’re registered. Most states and territories have bodies with whom reputable tradespeople are recorded.

4. Confirm what’s going to be done

If you’re getting repairs, clarify what’s going to be done and check whether any subcontractors will be involved in the project.

Finance impersonators

Major banks and insurers often roll out support schemes for customers hit by natural disasters, letting them defer or reduce loan repayments, waive premiums or get access to savings more easily.

However, the fact that people are often waiting to hear from their financial institutions during these crises gives scammers a chance to breathe new life into an old trick.

We’ve previously highlighted how scammers have been able to impersonate banks (especially over SMS) and steal thousands of dollars of victims’ savings.

The sense of urgency and stress these scams thrive on is often heightened in the aftermath of fires, floods and storms, and banks say impersonation scams can increase at these times.

Bank impersonators operating in the wake of a natural disaster may demand payments or personal details in return for providing the support services that banks usually offer at these times.

They may also see the chaos of a disaster as a chance to roll out their traditional method – claiming your money is at risk and urging you to move it to an account they control.

How to avoid finance impersonation scams

1. Watch out for sudden contact 

Beware of unsolicited calls or messages from your bank or insurer urging you to take action or making unusual claims or requests. 

2. Don’t share sensitive details 

Businesses shouldn’t ask you to provide information like passwords, PINs or verification codes over the phone or by email or message. They also shouldn’t ask you to click on links, scan QR codes or download software. 

3. Verify what you’re being told 

Contact your institution using details you’ve found yourself to confirm any suspicious information or requests.

Government phishing

Scammers can weaponise the same technology they use to masquerade as banks and insurers in order to pass themselves off as representatives of government agencies or local councils.

These organisations are often the same ones co-ordinating services or providing vital support in the aftermath of destructive weather, making the potential fallout from these phishing schemes even greater.

Scammers will often claim to be contacting you on behalf of the agencies most commonly associated with financial payments and support, such as myGov and the Australian Tax Office (ATO).

The similarities these schemes share with bank impersonation scams mean they can be spotted in similar ways.

How to avoid government phishing scams

1. Watch out for sudden contact

Beware of unsolicited calls or messages from myGov or the ATO urging you to provide information or to repay fake debts.

2. Don’t share sensitive details

Neither myGov nor the ATO will ask you to provide sensitive information over the phone or in messages. They also won’t ask you to click on links, scan QR codes or download software.

3. Verify what you’re being told

Contact the government agency claiming to be talking to you using details you’ve found yourself to confirm any suspicious information or requests.

Fake fundraisers

A lot of us feel inspired to donate our own time, money or possessions when we see others having their lives turned upside down by a natural disaster.

But scammers have been known to exploit these sentiments for their own gain.

The Black Summer bushfires of 2019–20 saw the ACCC shut down multiple fake online charities and fundraising pages on social media as scammers attempted to siphon off the significant influx in donations.

Floods have also provided fundraising scammers with an opportunity to ply their trade. 

Last August, Western Australian authorities found scammers impersonating a reputable charity on Instagram and messaging people who’d already donated to a local flood relief effort.

Payment via gift cards is a well-worn scammer technique, but not all fake charity schemes are so easily identified.

How to spot fundraising scams

1. Be sceptical of unexpected messages

A legitimate charity is unlikely to message you on social media. Beware of any organisations asking you to donate to relief efforts this way. Also be wary of unsolicited calls or emails making emotional pleas for donations.

2. Verify who you’re donating to

You can see if a charity is legitimate by checking that it’s registered with the (ACNC).

3. Double-check websites

Scammers can create fake sites mirroring those of established charities. Putting a charity’s name into a search engine and clicking on non-sponsored results is a good way to make sure you’re on the right page. For more tips on spotting phoney sites, see our guide to spotting a fake website.

Avoid any risk of clicking on fake links by finding a charity on the ACNC’s register and following the links from there to its website.

4. Check official sources

State and territory governments dealing with major natural disasters will often highlight official fundraising efforts on their websites and platforms.

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The supply chains of large-scale retailers such as Kmart Australia extend through many countries and involve hundreds of individual suppliers. The vast majority of Kmart’s suppliers are located in China, but Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan and Vietnam also manufacture the apparel, footwear and other products in their stores, with rock-bottom prices that prove irresistible for many Australians.��

With goods this cheap from numerous suppliers, the possibility of labour exploitation is always there. The International Labour Organisation (part of the United Nations) estimates that around 50 million people work under modern slavery conditions around the world, many of them in countries that are poor compared to Australia.��

The Kmart Group, which is owned by Wesfarmers and includes Target, had a banner 2024 financial year. Profits (or ‘earnings’, which is revenue minus expenses) of $958 million were about 25% higher than the previous 12 months and set a new record. Overall revenue was up to over $11 billion.

Kmart says the factories that supply its products are independently audited. Its ethical sourcing transparency policy states “we work with suppliers who share and follow our high standards of conduct in whichever country they operate”. The company can demand information from suppliers about the ages and wages of workers and says it can prohibit ‘high risk’ sourcing practices.��

But as of May 2025, Kmart Australia had 856 businesses in its supply chain, many of which have thousands of employees. Even with a firm commitment to ethical sourcing, keeping a close eye on all of them would be a massive and costly undertaking for any major retailer.��

And like other companies, Kmart’s supply chains extend to parts of the world where concerns about forced labour are particularly acute, including what is now known as the Uyghur Autonomous Region in Xinjiang, China.��

Australian Uyghurs take legal action 

On 4 August, the Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Women’s Association (AUTWA) announced that it had filed an application in the Federal Court in an effort to force Kmart to supply documents detailing what it knows about two of its suppliers based in the region.��

AUTWA president Ramila Chanisheff says: “China’s mass imprisonment, repression and forced labour of Uyghur people is well-documented. We’re demanding answers from Kmart so we know whether its actions live up to its words about addressing forced labour risks in its supply chain.” 

Kmart has strenuously denied any links to forced labour, but Jennifer Kanis of the law firm Maurice Blackburn – which is representing the AUTWA along with the Human Rights Law Centre – says, “We know there are credible links between two of its factories and suppliers and the use of Uyghur forced labour in Xinjiang.”

“Kmart must be transparent about its potential links with Uyghur forced labour, and the Court will be asked to compel Kmart to hand over information about what due diligence it has conducted on suppliers with links to Xinjiang,” Kanis says.��

If Kmart can’t or won’t supply the information, any further legal action would hinge on whether the company has engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct by advertising itself as more ethical than it is.��

Kmart stands by its ethical sourcing credentials 

A Kmart spokesperson tells ����Vlog that the company “is disappointed that the AUTWA has taken this course of action”, adding that it had invited the group to meet with the company several times “to help us understand their concerns” and that the invitation has not been taken up.��

Though the Uyghur rights group is seeking documentation that would substantiate that Kmart has no links to forced labour in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the spokesperson says that “at no point has the AUTWA engaged with Kmart to explain or identify any specific alleged inadequacies”.

Kmart maintains that it has had an ethical sourcing program in place for 15 years, which it says helps “to identify and mitigate modern slavery risks, including the risk of forced labour, in our operations and supply chains”.��

Compliance with the code is a contractual obligation for Kmart’s suppliers.��

No ban on goods from questionable sources

But why are goods from regions where forced labour is a major concern coming to Australia in the first place? Shelley Marshall, deputy dean at the School of Law at RMIT University, says Australia has a long way to go in establishing firm policies against modern slavery, of which forced labour is a prime example.��

“Unlike the United States and the European Union, Australia does not ban imports linked to forced labour, nor does it impose a duty on companies to act on modern slavery risks—only to report them,” Marshall says.��

“Kmart maintains it has robust ethical sourcing policies and denies any link to forced labour. But the fact that the plaintiff had to apply to the court just to access supplier information, which Kmart publicly claims to have transparently disclosed, demonstrates the profound inadequacy of Australian consumer law.”

Freya Dinshaw, associate legal director at the Human Rights Law Centre, says “the alarm bells have been ringing for a long time” about forced labour in the Chinese garment sector, a fact that human rights advocates have made clear to Australian retailers.��

Dinshaw believes companies should be required to investigate and prevent labour exploitation, rather than merely having to report on potential modern slavery risks in their supply chains as required by Australia’s Modern Slavery Act.�� 

As it stands right now, it’s up to non-governmental organisations and advocacy groups to press the issue.��

“This case highlights some of the weaknesses in Australia’s modern slavery laws,” Dinshaw says. “It shouldn’t be left to members of the public to take companies to court and force them to open their books where there are suspicions of links to modern slavery.”

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Modern slavery exists in an underworld, but on any given day we could walk by one of its victims.��

It’s been estimated that around 41,000 people are living in slavery-like conditions in Australia, suffering exploitation across many sectors of our economy. In the most horrific cases, people are trapped in sexual servitude. Many of them came here as temporary migrant workers hoping for a new home.��

The issue is vastly under-reported. Tip-offs to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) hit an all-time high of 382 in the year 2023–24. At the top of the list was human trafficking, forced marriage, forced labour and sexual exploitation. (Other forms of modern slavery include debt bondage and deceptive recruiting.) 

The record number “represents innocent lives in the community” AFP Human Exploitation Commander Helen Schneider said when the findings were announced.

Prior to this, reports to the AFP inched upward from 162 in financial year 2018 to 294 in FY2022.��

The low numbers mask the fact that it’s happening all around us. As recently as mid-June, the AFP arrested a woman with Australian and Nigerian citizenship for luring people from Papua New Guinea to Australia with the offer of university scholarships. The PNG nationals were then forced to work at various farms in Queensland to pay off the substantial debts the human trafficker said they had incurred for travel to Australia.��

The exploitation of many more innocent lives goes unreported, mainly for fear of retaliation by overseers.��

‘I knew we were in trouble’ 

Moe Turaga has lived experience of modern slavery. He was lured to Australia from Fiji along with nine others by a Fijian trafficker with the promise of a job picking fruit in Victoria.��

“I didn’t ask a lot of questions on arrival in Sydney. My boss took my passport and told me I had a debt to pay off for my travel expenses. He took my wages for two years, and he told me he was sending them back to my mom in Fiji. I never received any cash or had any access to a bank account,” Turaga says.��

Working conditions were harsh. Turaga was injured more than once and not offered medical care, but he felt he was doing the right thing by his family.��

“After two years, I managed to call my mum,” he says. “The first question she asked really shocked me: ‘When are you going to send some money home?’. My boss had not sent any of my wages home for the whole two years I was picking fruit. I was 19. I had no idea what modern slavery was, but I knew we were in trouble.” 

He never received the wages, and his boss never faced any consequences.��

Peer support is critical 

Though years have passed, the raw feeling of helplessness is not hard to recall. “We really had no idea what to do or who to turn to,” Turaga says. “We were trapped. I could not go home to my mum empty handed. That was the biggest thing. I had no money to go anywhere, and my passport was still with the migration agent. So we just had to keep on working and keep looking for a way out.”

Turaga eventually found one through a woman from a neighbouring farm that he met at a church morning tea. Sensing his distress, she offered him paid work, helped him get his passport back, and set him on a course that would prove life-changing. Money finally started arriving at Turaga’s home in Fiji.��

Over time, he found his way to becoming an Australian citizen and now works with , an organisation founded in 2023 by modern slavery survivors. Its mission is to provide peer support for survivors and help them transition to an autonomous life. This involves providing guidance with necessities such as housing, employment, medical care and legal assistance. In a recent survey of Survivor Connection’s clients, 90% reported having serious difficulties making this transition without the help of someone who knew firsthand what they’d been through.��

Survivor Connection’s co-founder Sarah Schricker says modern slavery “can happen anywhere in many different contexts”.

“Unfortunately, it seems that people’s ingenuity and propensity to exploit or abuse is limitless.”

The one commonality is that victims are usually socially isolated and financially desperate.��

Spotlight on overseas supply chains

While advocacy groups such as Survivor Connections as well as the AFP regularly hear from local victims, Australia’s Modern Slavery Act is mainly focused on the overseas supply chains of companies selling goods and services in Australia.��

The Act is meant to shed light on these hidden tentacles of commerce. To comply, companies with $100 million or more in annual revenue are required to publish an annual Modern Slavery Statement that outlines how the business is addressing the risks of modern slavery in its global supply chains and operations.��

But this process doesn’t seem to be helping to reduce modern slavery overseas or domestically. Adherence to the reporting requirements has been spotty, and critics say the annual requirement has become a perfunctory exercise for many companies. There are no financial penalties for non-compliance.��

Monash University experts have been evaluating the quality of these reports since the Act came into effect. Each year, the Monash researchers rate around 100 ASX-listed companies on a scale of A to F according to how well their reports satisfy the requirements specified in the legislation.

“Our framework evaluates the extent to which a statement provides a clear understanding of the company’s operations and supply chains, its exposure to modern slavery risks, and the actions taken to address those risks,” Monash researcher Dr Nga Pham tells ����Vlog. “In our assessment, we distinguish between basic disclosure and more comprehensive, meaningful reporting.” 

The overall quality of reports has been improving year-on-year, but many companies continue to flout the spirit of the reporting regime. Utility and real estate companies have consistently scored the highest, while financial services, information technology and healthcare companies continue to file sub-standard reports.��

Lack of meaningful detail 

In the latest Monash evaluation, covering financial year 2023, half of the statements received an A and 21% a B. (In FY2020, the inaugural year of reporting, only 3% were A rated and 12% B.)

“While most companies acknowledge modern slavery risks, many fall short in providing meaningful detail on how those risks are identified, assessed, and addressed, particularly beyond their direct, Tier 1 suppliers,” Pham says.��

This means modern slavery could be occurring further down the supply chain and companies either don’t know about it or are neglecting to report it. Many companies are also failing to explain how they measure the effectiveness of the steps they do take.��

But some are setting examples for others to follow. “There are companies that are able to map out their extended supply chains with specific information about suppliers up to Tier 5,” Pham says. (Tiers in supply chains represent the series of suppliers down the line that provide materials for the company’s products.) 

“Gaining deeper insight into suppliers beyond Tier 1 is essential. Modern slavery risks frequently reside in these extended supply chains. Companies should actively engage with their Tier 1 suppliers to trace the origin of materials and assess practices through all tiers of the supply chain.” 

Receiving a C or D rating in the Monash analysis clearly indicates shortcomings, but the companies have at least made an effort. Anything below that means the company’s not even trying.��

“Statements receiving an E or F rating reflect limited effort to meet even the minimum expectations. We would consider them unsatisfactory,” Pham says.��

Which company reports fared the worst in the latest Monash University evaluation? 

Companies that scored an ‘E’:

• Resmed Inc. (Australian medical equipment company based in San Diego, California)
• Steadfast Group Limited (Sydney-based insurance firm)
• Spark New Zealand (NZ-based telecom) 

Companies that scored an ‘F’:

• Harvey Norman (Australian retailer)
• Janus Henderson Group (London-based asset management firm)
• Block Inc (US-based mobile payments company)
• Virgin Money UK (financial services firm)

Tainted goods and services

In May 2023, the federal government tabled a report on the first three years of the Act, which made a number of recommendations, including introducing penalties for non-compliance and lowering the threshold for reporting requirements from $100 million in annual turnover to $50 million. (The recommendations have yet to be enacted.) 

Professor John Dumay of Macquarie University, who works with the organisation Be Slavery Free, took part in the three-year review.

“One of the issues that we have with the Modern Slavery Act is that it’s very much a reporting and awareness raising piece of legislation, and I don’t think it’s gone very far in eliminating any form of slavery in Australia,” Dumay tells ����Vlog.��

“So companies are now issuing these reports, and sometimes they’re like a tick-the-box report, saying ‘yeah, we’ve complied with the Act’. In fact, many of the reports are fairly low quality. The problem is that we do very little in Australia to combat the abuses. We mainly import modern slavery through the goods and services we buy.” 

Modern slavery in the textile trade 

New South Wales established its own Modern Slavery Act around the same time as the national one. Among other things, it focuses on NSW state and local government supply chains rather than those of global corporations.��

One area of particular concern for NSW anti-slavery commissioner Dr James Cockayne, whose five-year term began in 2022, is workers in the textile, clothing and footwear (TCF) sector in the state as well as the country as a whole. (There is also a national anti-slavery commissioner.) 

In a February 2024 submission to the Inquiry into the Ethical Clothing Extended Responsibilities Scheme 2005 (NSW), authors Cockayne and Justine Coneybeer write that workers in the TCF sector, especially those who work outside of factories, “exhibit significant indicators of vulnerability to workplace exploitation, abuse and immobility”. They say that “TCF jobs are Hobbesian: nasty, brutish and short”.

The 2005 scheme was designed to ensure that clothing retailers complied with the Ethical Clothing Australia Code and provided outworkers with fair wages, superannuation and other entitlements that most Australians take for granted. For a time it appeared to have improved supply chain transparency and enabled assistance for vulnerable outworkers, but the scheme has fallen into disuse, Cockayne says.��

As of February 2024, there were around 7727 businesses in the TCF sector in Australia, and 91% of them had a turnover of less than $2 million a year, a tiny fraction of the revenue of major clothing brands. According to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there were 5985 TCF workers in NSW.��

But Cockayne says this likely fails to include many people who work in their homes and off the books, a significant percentage of whom are female, over 55, and from a migrant and non-English speaking background. They’re called outworkers or homeworkers, and the most common language spoken among them is Vietnamese.��

According to the submission, 10% of full-time TCF workers nationally are paid at a scale that puts them on or below the poverty line, and many have reported being threatened or coerced into working overtime without pay, often in inhospitable conditions. Homeworkers are injured on the job at three times the rate of factory workers, and children sometimes assist with the work. They are overwhelmingly non-unionised.

The conditions bear the hallmarks of forced labour, perhaps the most unequivocal form of modern slavery.��

“As the inquiry recently conducted by the NSW Modern Slavery Committee revealed, there is significant information suggesting textile outworkers in New South Wales are vulnerable to violations of their labour rights and even, in extreme cases, modern slavery.�� Nearly all the goods they produce are locally consumed,” Cockayne tells ����Vlog.��

He added that he’s “actively working with the NSW Government, the NSW Modern Slavery Committee, textiles unions and other stakeholders to strengthen protections for vulnerable textile outworkers”.��

Lived experience is critical 

In December last year, as part of a review of the Modern Slavery Act NSW, the NSW Parliament’s Modern Slavery Committee recommended that the legislation be strengthened in a number of ways, including by having survivors take part in anti-slavery efforts.��

In May 2025, the NSW Government declined to add that to the legislation for the time being, a move that Cockayne hopes will be reconsidered.��

“Meaningful engagement of people with lived experience is critical to effective anti-slavery work,” he says. “It also plays a vital role in restoring agency to survivors. Policies are  more effective and more efficient when informed by those with lived experience.” 

As of July 2025, the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner’s Advisory Panel will include equal representation of lived and learned experience. The Commissioner’s Lived Experience Engagement policy will be released in the coming months.

Fiona David, founder and CEO of the advocacy group Fair Futures, says “peer support groups are central to honouring the experiences and voices of survivors to connect them with the practical support services they need. Providing peer support can be a valuable part of a survivors journey, as they use their lived expertise to support another person’s recovery.”

Meanwhile, modern slavery goes on.��

“Credible reports to my office, including through the 1800 FREEDOM hotline, indicate serious modern slavery risks across a range of sectors in NSW, affecting both temporary migrant workers and long-term residents,” Cockayne says. “This includes horticulture, agriculture, meat-processing, light industrial manufacturing and services, cleaning, security, aged care, construction, nail salons, retail, hospitality, and commercial sex work.”

Indicators are everywhere 

For Moe Turaga, the perspective of modern slavery survivors needs to be a big part of rolling it back.�� 

“I had never heard of modern slavery or forced labor or deceptive recruitment,” Turaga says. “Back when I was a teenager, slavery was an African American in chains, something we saw in the movies. But when you start to learn about what modern slavery is, you start seeing indicators everywhere.”

Turaga says he gets hundreds of phone calls every year from workers in distress, mostly from people on the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme.” (The scheme, also known as the farm scheme, authorises Australian businesses to employ workers from nine Pacific islands and Timor-Leste for up to four years.) 

“I wish Australian consumers were more engaged with who is actually making the goods they buy and who is providing the services they pay for,” Turaga says. “Australia’s pretty slack compared to the US and the Europeans.” 

If you or someone you know is at risk of modern slavery, you should contact the Australian Federal Police on 131 237 (131 AFP).There is also support available on the Australian Government’s , which lists a number of services and charities working to put a stop to modern slavery.��

The Australian Red Cross delivers the government’s  , and the organisation mentioned in this article,  may also be of assistance.

The post Is Australia serious about solving its modern slavery problem? appeared first on ����Vlog.

Chocolate is arguably one of the most ethically conflicted, fast-moving consumer goods on the market, but that hasn’t stopped us from eating it. The average Australian consumes around 32 kilograms of the habit-forming substance a year, with a notable splurge at Easter time, when we spend about $60 a piece on chocolate products. But it’s a guilty pleasure in more ways than one.��

It’s no secret that cocoa farming, most of which takes place in West Africa, has a long history of environmental devastation and the use of child labour, among other concerns. This is why many of us want to know that the chocolate we consume has been as ethically sourced as possible.��

The chocolate industry is keenly aware of this consumer sentiment, and many brands make reassuring claims about their ethical sourcing policies. The question is whether the claims stack up.��

The answers in each case come with many underlying complexities, something that advocates and researchers in the area of ethical cocoa farming call a ‘wicked problem’. Defining the criteria for what constitutes an ethically sourced chocolate product is not as straightforward as it may seem.��

The difficulty of defining ethically produced chocolate

For instance, some consumers may want to know that no pesticides or fertilisers were used to grow cocoa, and this is one of the factors that ethical chocolate advocates take into account when evaluating brands.�� 

But not using these agrochemicals can prove catastrophic for cocoa farmers and the local community, since the entire crop could be lost.��

The term ‘child labour’ is also not clear-cut. It’s generally defined as children who are working without being paid and are denied access to schooling. The United Nations further defines it as “work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development”. There is also a connotation that the work is physically dangerous.��

But in many cocoa farming communities, young people who are technically children work the farms out of necessity, since there are no other jobs around. And it can be difficult to measure whether their conditions fall under the definition of child labour. Meanwhile, some countries define a child as being under 18; in other countries it’s 16.��

The overarching disconnect is that the ethics of cocoa farming are often defined by people who don’t live in West Africa and don’t understand its complexities.

What is clear, though, is that child labour in cocoa farming that does meet the general definition, along with widespread deforestation, are entrenched issues with a long history.��

And none of the above means we shouldn’t try to buy the most ethically sourced chocolate products we can find, relying on whatever information is available.��

‘We have to be seen to be doing something’

Cocoa farming expert professor John Dumay of Macquarie University tells ����Vlog that “everybody knows there’s child labour in the supply chains”.

“We’re getting to a point in supply chain awareness where you can’t really hide behind the fact that you don’t know what’s going on. What the companies are doing now is going, ‘okay, we can’t ignore the fact that it’s happening. We have to be seen to be doing something’,” he says.��

Dumay co-authored a study in 2021 focusing on Nestlé’s operations in the Ivory Coast.��

“It is intriguing that Nestlé can operate in the Ivory Coast with openly admitted ethical issues in its cocoa supply chain while simultaneously winning Corporate Social Responsibility awards,” the authors wrote.��

The study put the number of children under 15 working in the Ivory Coast and Ghana at more than two million. There’s little question that the conditions most of them were working under would meet the definition of child labour in the exploitative sense. But the situation seems to be improving.��

Dumay says the fact that all the major cocoa companies are working with advocacy groups like the Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade and Be Slavery Free shows that progress is being made. Nestlé currently reports that 85% of its cocoa is sourced through its Nestlé Cocoa Plan, which includes making its supply chains more transparent and traceable and mitigating other ethical concerns.��

“When I first started researching Nestlé, it had about 30% of its cocoa in the plan,” Dumay says.��

Collaboration is key

A corollary of the wicked problem is that taking a sledgehammer approach to ethical issues in cocoa supply chains often backfires. It can have dire economic impacts on communities in cocoa-producing countries.��

“We could say, ‘okay, we’re gonna have a complete boycott of cocoa coming from West Africa’, but that’s not going to do the people in West Africa any good. It would probably cause more problems than it solves, because all of a sudden these people wouldn’t have an income,” Dumay says.��

Working collaboratively with cocoa suppliers and manufacturers to incrementally reduce the incidence of labour exploitation and deforestation, on the other hand, can lead to actual progress.��

Dumay cites European Union legislation meant to come into effect in 2021 that would have required importers of agricultural products to prove they weren’t grown on deforested land.��

“People in West Africa are very happy to comply with that,” he says.

“However, the EU legislation didn’t come with any money to help the poor farmers put the systems in place that would allow that certification to happen. So, yeah, great legislation, good intentions, but at the end of the day, is that actually going to work?”

The legislation is currently on hold.��

Be Slavery Free’s Chocolate Scorecard 

The Australian advocacy organisation Be Slavery Free recently published , which ranks the ethical profiles of chocolate manufacturers according to a range of criteria, including supply chain traceability and transparency, deforestation and climate impact, the use of child labour, and ensuring a living income to those who work in the cocoa industry.

The Chocolate Scorecard is put together each year by researchers at Macquarie University, University of Wollongong and Open University UK.��

The due diligence in determining the rankings involves gathering verifiable documentation from the companies about their ethical supply chain programs, and putting them under the microscope to evaluate their credibility.��

����Vlog spoke to Be Slavery Free co-director Fuzz Kitto from Brazil, where he was getting ready to speak at the World Cocoa Foundation’s annual partnership meeting. The foundation is an industry body dedicated to resolving its ethical problems.

The scorecard project evolved out of a growing awareness that simply calling companies out for wrongdoing wasn’t fixing the problem, and that many companies genuinely wanted to clean up their cocoa supply chains, Kitto says.�� 

“So we changed from a name and shame to a name and fame organisation. And that’s what the chocolate scorecard is really based on. It’s highlighting those that are doing well, those that are along the track, and others who really need to change and do a lot more. We back up what the companies tell us by third-party assessments.” 

The necessity of relationship building 

Kitto and his colleagues took on board the complaints by industry that non-government organisations such as Be Slavery Free were quick to criticise chocolate manufacturers for not doing enough to stop child labour and deforestation in their supply chains but slow to commend them when they did make progress. He says working with companies and offering constructive feedback, rather than preaching to them, has moved the needle in the right direction.��

But it’s not all smooth sailing.��

“You can’t have trust unless you’ve got some sort of relationship going. And there are companies that we’ve learned to trust. Then there are other companies where it’s a bit of a reach to even attempt to trust,” Kitto says.�� 

Kitto says a common pitfall with wicked problems such as cocoa supply chains is oversimplifying their solutions and missing the underlying causes, and that can spill over into how well-meaning NGOs approach the issue. Child labour, deforestation and other issues are symptoms of a disease, he points out, which is the lack of a living income for cocoa farmers.��

Companies can’t do it alone

John Dumay has come to learn that expecting chocolate manufacturers to snap their fingers and eradicate child labour and deforestation in their supply chains is delusional.��

Despite their size and global reach, these companies aren’t in a position to fully trace all the cocoa that comes from each farm gate through the manufacturing system.��

“For millions of farmers to be able to set that kind of infrastructure up is not within the power of a particular company, it’s actually within the power of national governments,” Dumay says.�� 

The governments of the Ivory Coast and Ghana have been working on national traceability systems since early 2022.��

“It’s such a wicked problem with so many different moving parts,” Dumay says.

“From our own Western perspective, we may think it’s an easy problem to solve. But you have to understand the intricacies of what’s happening in West Africa.

“If we just rely on the companies to fix the problem the problem will never get fixed, because it’s a wider economic problem, a wider social problem and a wider political problem. We’re dealing with people and governments and cultures that are in West Africa, not in Australia or the global north.” 

Tony’s Chocolonely charting a new course 

The Dutch chocolate manufacturer Tony’s Chocolonely was recently ranked the most ethical brand in Be Slavery Free’s medium and large company Chocolate Scorecard category for the sixth year in a row. Fuzz Kitto says there’s a reason for that.��

“They’re looking at systemic change, and that’s where they’ve really made a difference. Instead of going out and saying we’re good and you’re all bad, they’ve said, ‘okay, let’s get in here and see if we can all change this together’. It’s that spirit of collaboration that has brought about the incredible effect that Tony’s Chocolonely has been able to have,” Kitto says.��

John Dumay, who is involved in the Chocolate Scorecard project, says “they’re one of the companies that are leading the charge. But when you look at how much influence or how much volume they have in the market, they’re a drop in the bucket compared to the bigger players. So we’re very happy that companies like Nestlé’ are participating in the scorecard.” 

Whichever way you slice the problem, getting everybody on board is the only option, Dumay says.��

“We’re seeing an increase in traceability, which is a good thing. We are seeing that progress, but the progress is slow. It has to be done with the cooperation of the companies, the suppliers, and the governments themselves. Otherwise, it just doesn’t work.” 

The post How ethical is your favourite chocolate?  appeared first on ����Vlog.

And for good reason. It’s no secret that our current rate of consumption is unsustainable for the environment but, aside from that, I think some of us are just plain sick of the constant push to buy more.��

It’s hard to describe the feeling of unease that prods at your conscience when you watch an influencer unbox their giant haul of cheap, mass-produced clothes, or showcase their 35-step “get ready with me” video featuring an unseemly number of skincare and beauty products.

If I had to describe it, I’d say it’s simply a feeling of wrongness. I don’t need science or even logic to tell me that one person consuming all these products just isn’t right.��

But the great thing about the internet is that for every upsetting trend, there’s an inspiring one. My feed is full of accounts that focus on sustainability, thrifting (the admittedly cooler-sounding name for op-shopping used by Americans) and “deinfluencing”, where influencers discourage their followers from buying certain products.��

I’ve been stingy since way before it was cool, but the new popularity of underconsumption has given me the push I need to take my frugality to the next level. So, while I’ve always tried to avoid unnecessary purchases, this year I’m committing to a list of things I won’t be buying brand new.

Things I won’t be buying new this year

1. Fast fashion trends

There was a  time when fashion retailers released just two collections a year. Nowadays, new trends pop up and die away almost faster than you can order the clothes and have them delivered to your house. It’s a never-ending treadmill of consumption and I’m stepping off it.��

As a committed and experienced op shopper, I know that whenever there is a particular item or style of clothing I’d like to add to my closet, if I just pause and hold off buying for a month or two, one of two things happens. Either the trend disappears and my desire for the item abates, or I find the item or style I want at an op shop and get to wear it guilt-free.��

2. Kitchen stuff

I’m not really talking about appliances here but rather crockery, tea towels, utensils, plates, cups, storage jars/containers and gadgets like garlic crushers, lemon squeezers and all that jazz.��

It’s all so abundantly available at op shops – there’s really no point in buying new. In fact, I haven’t bought any of these items brand new for a long, long time.��

Over the past couple of years I’ve gotten spatulas, wooden spoons, citrus squeezers, silicone popsicle moulds, oven-safe ramekins, bowls, kids plates and cutlery and many, many glass storage jars, all for a dollar or two at my local op shops. And I really haven’t even had to look hard for them.��

3. Towels and bedding

The reasoning here is basically the same as with kitchen items – op shops are full to bursting with towels and bedding of all shapes, sizes, patterns, fabrics and designs. Give them a hot wash and you’re good to go.��

And if the idea of using someone else’s old towel or sheet gives you the ick, I ask you this – have you ever stayed in a hotel or AirBnb (or even in a hospital)? Spoiler: those towels and sheets have almost certainly been used by more people than the ones you’ll find in an op shop.

4. New skincare products or makeup

If you read my article last year explaining why I made my own moisturiser from beef tallow, this one will come as no surprise. I made a big batch midway through 2024 and I still have more than half left. I’ll probably make another batch at some point this year, but it will only cost me $5 in beef tallow from the local butcher, plus a couple of hours of my time.��

After using my own tallow balm, I’m really not convinced there is even any benefit in using any of the myriad creams, lotions and serums that are constantly being plugged online. Sometimes, if I’m feeling fancy, I use some pure castor oil. Even if I couldn’t be bothered to make my own, I still think I’d just buy a big vat of a very basic and pure moisturising product and leave it at that.

As for makeup, while I’m constantly tempted by aspirational videos I see online, I bought a big haul of makeup back in 2023 that works perfectly (I work from home so I don’t bother wearing it most days). And I highly doubt that buying the next big thing in makeup is going to radically alter my appearance for the better, so I’m at peace with putting this on my no-buy list.

5. Home decorations

With two kids aged three and six, my husband and I finally feel like we are emerging from the chaotic swamp of the “early years”, where home decor consists of giant packs of nappies, toast crusts and a general sense of pervasive stickiness.��

As such, we are starting to dabble with the concept of bringing things into our home purely for their aesthetic value. But while we’ve bought a few things new over the past year, this year I’m committed to doing everything DIY/second-hand. Here are some of my favourite ideas:

Plants

Obviously you can buy plants “new” and it’s not the worst thing for the environment, but reality check: plants grow for free all over the damn place.��

I’ve familiarised myself with the houseplants that grow easily from cuttings (like snake plants, devil’s ivy and monstera) and made it my business to find free cuttings from my friends and family (and in some cases my own backyard). Local Waste Not Want Not/Freecycle Facebook groups are also a great place to source free plants and cuttings.��

For the pots, I try to grab them from the op shop or even just repurpose clear jars, vases and teapots I already have at home.

Diffusers

Now that the smell of baby vomit and dirty nappies has dissipated, I’ve dared to dream of having a home that actually smells good. The artificial perfumes used in most scented candles and diffusers give me a headache, so I did some research and found out you can actually make your own diffusers.��

All you need is a little pot, some neutral carrier oil (I use liquid coconut oil), essential oils of your choice and some sticks. You can just grab some twigs from your garden, bake them in the oven and then pop them in the pot with the oils and voila – natural diffuser.��

We cheated and bought a bulk lot of reed sticks online last year (because they do a better job of diffusing the scent), but now we can top up and renew our diffusers throughout the year without buying new.��

Wall art

We collect interesting photo frames from the op shop and fill them with family photos and some hand drawn or painted pictures done by my husband (he’s not an artist but he’s pretty good at recreating pictures and designs I’ve seen online and taken a liking to).

6. New school stuff

My son started kindergarten last year, so buying him some school uniforms and shoes was unavoidable. But just because he’s about to start a new school year doesn’t mean all his school stuff needs updating.��

He still fits into his uniform and school shoes and he’s had the same school bag since preschool – it still works fine, no need to replace it.��

For his lunch, I use a collection of stainless steel containers I’ve built up from op shops and Aldi over the years – I just pop them in his insulated lunch bag. I’m happy to buy a new lunch bag every couple of years as they do get kind of gross, but I expect the metal containers to continue to be used into high school and beyond (admittedly quite a few have been lost at school already).��

7. Kids gifts and toys

This Christmas, all my kids’ gifts were second-hand (except a couple of very specific requests from my son – new-in-box Ninjago lego is beyond my op shopping abilities). They loved everything they got and I spent very little money. Plus, I won’t feel aggrieved if they get sick of the toys within a few months (which they inevitably will).��

I plan to do the same for Christmas and birthdays this year, but I also maintain an epic 100% op shop-sourced gift cupboard for the sundry birthday parties my children are invited to throughout the year. I know there can be a kind of stigma around gifting op shop goods, but I think it’s time we normalised second-hand toys for kids.��

Op shops (and people’s homes) are absolutely overrun with toys. There really is very little need to buy new when there are so many in circulation. Kids outgrow and get bored of toys so easily, it makes sense to pass them on. This Christmas I gifted my three-year-old nephew a PJ Masks play set that I originally bought (second-hand off Facebook Marketplace) for my son a couple of years ago. He’s outgrown it, but my little nephew is totally into it. And the plastic toys get a third loving owner. Win-win-win.��

8. Anything off Temu

OK, this may be the moral hill that I die on but I’m committing to not buying anything off Temu this year (and hopefully ever).��

It’s not just that I have concerns about the sustainability and ethics of the business model, it’s also the fact that I don’t think the platform is compatible with mindful consumption. It seems to me that the way the app is set up with high-pressure tactics is specifically designed to encourage impulse buying and overconsumption of cheap, low-quality products that are destined to see out the vast majority of their days in landfill.��

Even if I decide I need to buy something cheap and brand new for some reason, I’ll stick to shopping at Kmart, Big W or Target. At least I know I’ll be able to invoke my consumer rights if the product is faulty or unsafe (we recently found a number of dangerous toys being sold at Temu). Plus, I can visit a physical store and make sure the item is fit for purpose before I buy.

Things I will be buying new (but mindfully) in 2025

Buying less is the bedrock of underconsumption, but there is also an important place for mindful buying. If working at ����Vlog has taught me anything, it’s that with the right research and planning, buying the right new product can often be the best choice both for your household and for the environment.��

The old saying “buy nice or buy twice” rings true for a number of items – certainly for most major essential appliances, but also for some non-essentials. So here are the things I will be buying brand new this year.��

Coffee machine

My husband and I have been considering buying a proper espresso machine for literally years. Last year I found a (brand new in box) manual espresso machine at the op shop and we’ve been using it for the past few months.��

While it’s definitely been a step up for us, the lack of an inbuilt grinder means we use pre-ground beans, which just don’t taste as good. And I’ve never really gotten the hang of making the perfect espresso shot with it – having to manually stop the shot is a total drag when you’re also juggling two demanding kids in the morning.��

After extremely careful deliberation, I’ve decided that paying over $500 for a high-quality, semi-automatic machine with an inbuilt grinder that is recommended by ����Vlog experts is a solid investment. I know that I can expect it to last for years, and it will be used and enjoyed every single day.

Air fryer

Like many ����Vlog employees, my opinion about air fryers has changed over the past few years. When this appliance first rose to popularity, most of us dismissed them as a fad – after all, they don’t do anything a normal oven can’t do. But the fad just refuses to die, and I admit I’ve become air-fryer curious. ����Vlog converts have raved to me about their ability to produce perfect salmon fillets, crunchy nuggets and crispy roast potatoes that don’t take hours to bake.��

But, up until recently, all the air fryers I’ve seen have had a plastic non-stick coating and I don’t like cooking with plastic. Now it seems that’s changing – we’ve recently tested a glass model, and I’ve also discovered that Crumble will be releasing a carbon steel model later this month. With these new options on the market, I think this year is the year I’ll take the plunge into air frying.��

Robot vac

Robot vacs are another appliance that some ����Vlog-rs are skeptical of, but I’m now convinced they’re worth buying (for some people). We currently have a second-hand Deebot that, honestly, does a pretty average job, but I still love it because it vacuums the floor for me!

I wouldn’t get one if I was the type of person who vacuums regularly and is meticulous about dirty floors. But I am not that person. I am a harried, working mother of two who just wants the most noticeable crumbs and debris magicked away while I do something else.

As with the coffee machine, trying a second-hand option first has helped me decide that it’s worth shelling out for a brand new, high-performing model – I know I’ll get good value out of it.��

So, while all these ideas are purely my own, I think we can all make our own list of things we don’t really need to buy new this year, and the things that might be worth it. Even if you don’t stick to it (and there’s no guarantee that I will), it certainly can’t hurt to try to be more mindful about what we’re buying.

If the idea of op-shopping scares you, read my op-shopping guide for some ideas on how to get started. And if you need help deciding which quality items you plan to bring into your home this year, check out our A–Z of product reviews.

The post 8 things I won’t be buying new in 2025 (and the few things I will) appeared first on ����Vlog.

It’s disturbing to consider that many of the workers from overseas we may see on the job at our local cafes and restaurants over the holiday season could be victims of exploitation.��

But it’s well documented that a lot of people who make their way to Australia on a temporary work visa end up being underpaid and overworked – especially in food services jobs.��

One estimate from 2023 was that between 5% and 16% of recently arrived migrants were being paid less than the minimum wage, equating to somewhere between 27,000 and 82,000 workers.��

In a recent survey of 959 migrant workers conducted by the Victoria-based Migrant Workers Centre, 62% of respondents reported experiencing at least one form of exploitation. Topping the list was being shortchanged on wages or having to work in unsafe conditions. More than three out of 10 reported being injured at work.��

The majority of employers treat migrant workers fairly, but some abuse their roles as sponsors, holding the threat of visa cancellation over their heads to compel them to work longer hours, accept lower pay, or put up with abusive behaviour.�� 

The employer has the power to dob them into the immigration authorities, and the prerogative to lie about violations of their visa restrictions.

The Catch-22 of Section 235

Until recently, for a worker to report that they were being compelled to work more hours than allowed would have been an act of self-sabotage. That’s because reporting it means you’re doing it, regardless of the reasons. And overstepping work restrictions would have been a visa violation under Section 235 of the Migration Act, punishable by visa cancellation.��

The longstanding Catch-22 has enabled employers to exploit workers with impunity. As part of our report earlier this year, Commander Clinton Sims of the Australian Border Force told us that stopping migrant worker exploitation remains a priority, but catching employers at it isn’t easy.

Referring to a July 2023 crackdown in which Border Force officers visited 266 workplaces across Australia and issued 18 infringement notices, Sims told us “the work that goes into these cases is substantial. Every instance where a business is fined is preceded by months of monitoring, interviews, and reviewing payslips and financial documents”.

Removing barriers to reporting

Advocates have long called for Section 235 to be repealed and for extra whistleblower protections to be added to the legislation, something that finally happened – with a conspicuous lack of fanfare – earlier this year.��

We recently asked the Department of Home Affairs for an update and a spokesperson confirmed that the Migration Act had been updated, as advocates had hoped, through the Migration Amendment (Strengthening Employer Compliance) Act 2024.

Section 235 “was identified as a barrier, preventing temporary migrants from reporting issues of exploitation or otherwise asserting their rights under workplace laws,” the spokesperson says.

New reporting protections were also added that mean visas won’t be cancelled for non-compliance “if there is a connection between that non-compliance and workplace exploitation”.

 “The underlying aim is to encourage the early reporting and resolution of workplace issues by addressing the fear that if they assert their workplace rights, the employer may vexatiously report them to have their visa cancelled,” the spokesperson tells us.

Holding exploitative employers to account

Unions NSW is one of a handful of organisations that have been at the forefront of trying to bring about better migrant worker protections.��

Secretary Mark Morey tells ����Vlog that the issue “has been a dark stain on Australia’s reputation, with our research showing at least 60% of foreign language job advertisements offering illegal wages, alongside shocking cases of workers being paid in food rations and enduring physical abuse”.��

The threat of criminal prosecution and loss of visa has “historically silenced exploited workers”, Morey says. Removing this could be a game changer, but the effectiveness of the new protections “will ultimately depend on robust enforcement and workers feeling safe to speak up”.��

A Migrant Workers Centre spokesperson tells ����Vlog that the legislative change “creates an opportunity to expose systemic issues and hold exploitative employers accountable, aligning Australia’s labour and migration policies with international human rights standards”.

But the new protections will only work if workers know about them and language-appropriate reporting mechanisms are in place. Enforcement agencies must also have the resources to act on reported abuses, the spokesperson says.��

“The success of this reform requires ongoing monitoring and evaluation to track the number of reports, the outcomes of investigations, and the broader impact on migrant workers’ conditions.” 

Relying on third parties to confirm exploitation

As part of the rollout of the updated Migration Act, a two-year pilot program – called Strengthening Reporting Protections – is currently underway. It dictates how the whistleblower protections work.��

Cases of exploitation will need to be confirmed by accredited third parties with expertise in workplace laws, including unions, community legal centres and the Fair Work Ombudsman. With the evidence in hand, these organisations can issue a certificate that confirms the connection between the breach of a visa condition and workplace exploitation.��

Once the certificate is issued, that they’re being forced to work longer hours than allowed or suffering other forms of exploitation without having their visas cancelled.��

Other new protections

A second component of the amendment – called Workplace Justice – adds a range of new protections for migrant workers. It’s also being rolled out as a two-year pilot and includes:

• making it an offence to use a person’s migration status to exploit them in the workplace
• prohibiting employers who seriously or repeatedly exploit migrant workers from hiring them
• giving the Australian Border Force new powers to enforce anti-exploitation rules
• increasing penalties for employers who exploit workers 
• allowing workers to extend their visas to pursue workplace claims.��

The pilot programs are works in progress and may be adjusted depending on their effectiveness.��

“It’s too early to measure the full impact of these reforms, but we’re cautiously optimistic about their potential to drive real change,” says Mark Morey.��

“We’ll continue pushing for stronger enforcement mechanisms and better wage recovery systems if needed. Our ultimate goal remains ensuring every worker in Australia, regardless of their visa status, receives the fair treatment they deserve.”

The post Will new protections put an end to migrant labour exploitation? appeared first on ����Vlog.

With the holiday season closing in fast, many of us are going to receive calls or be approached in public about giving to a charity. And, of course, many of us are willing to give what we can to help people in need.��

But we’re also worried about whether the charity in question can be trusted, or whether it’s a legitimate charity at all.��

The charity sector in Australia is extra large. Over 10% of the Australian workforce has jobs there, and it brought in over $200 billion dollars in 2023–24. Around 13% of Australians currently take part in volunteer work for a charity, and most charities depend entirely on volunteers.

But nearly a third of registered charities in Australia are comparatively tiny, with annual revenue of less than $50,000.

Knowing whether these charities are a legitimate place to send your donation can be especially difficult, because they’re not the big-name charities that most people have heard of. The smaller a charity, the more it depends on individual donations rather than other forms of financial support such as government grants.

Check the charity register

The sheer number of organisations asking for your money can lead to doubt and confusion, but it turns out there’s a government organisation whose job it is to keep charities operating in Australia on the up and up.��

It’s called the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), and it provides a lot of useful information about charities large and small – around 60,000 of them. The ACNC that a spokesperson tells ����Vlog is “a critical source of truth” for people wanting to know more about an organisation that’s asking for their money.��

“If a charity is listed on the register, you can be confident that it submits required core information about its work to us as the regulator, so it is transparent and accountable,” the spokesperson says. “Donors can be confident donations are going to the particular cause they would like to support.”

Charity status can be revoked 

The information on the register includes what the charity does, the names of the people who run it, and details about its finances. If a charity fails to provide the required information, the register will show that – a red flag for potential donors.��

Making sure this information is accurate and up to date is a central focus for the organisation, but it can also act as a watchdog as part of its mission to “promote trust and confidence” in the sector.��

The ACNC will take enforcement action if a charity repeatedly fails to submit information or keep proper records; if it fails to meet minimum standards of conduct and governance as defined by the ACNC; or if it’s no longer eligible to be registered as a charity.��

“The ACNC will act firmly where vulnerable people or significant charity assets are at risk and where there is evidence of serious mismanagement or misappropriation,” the spokesperson says.��

Its strongest enforcement tool is revoking an organisation’s charitable status, which means a loss of tax concessions.�� 

In 2023–24, the ACNC received 2309 reports about potential problems with charities. About a quarter of them had to do with charities using donations for the personal gain of staff, while 21% were about other forms of mismanagement of charity funds. The ACNC conducted 59 investigations and revoked the charity status of nine organisations. Another 36 charities were referred to other government agencies.��

The ACNC will also kick charities off the register if they fail to report required information for two consecutive years, something that happened in 181 cases in 2023–24. The spokesperson told us that charities who repeatedly fail to report have usually ceased being charities and that 73% submitted their information on time in the last financial year.�� 

Concerns about charity administration costs 

Another big organisation that’s dedicated to keeping the tens of thousands of charities operating in Australia honest is Fundraising Institute Australia (FIA), an industry body whose code of conduct “helps to ensure best practice and lifts the professionalism of the sector overall,” CEO Katherine Raskob tells ����Vlog.��

Raskob acknowledges that FIA has ongoing concerns about dodgy practices.��

“Unfortunately, bad actors in our sector can have an enormous impact on donor trust and confidence in charities and charitable fundraising overall and a negative impact on the charities that are well run, which I believe are the majority.”

A well-run charity would have certain internal costs, which in many cases would be justified. But it’s a sore point for many donors. We’ve heard from many who have expressed concern that too much of their donation may be whittled down by this administrative spending. Raskob insists this concern is overblown. The evidence shows, she says, that charities that spend less on administrative costs are often less effective.��

“This misaligned focus can mean that charities do not have the resources they need to operate effectively and use the generous donations received by Australians in the most effective and efficient way.” 

The industry term is the ‘non-profit starvation cycle’, Raskob says, a phenomenon fuelled by donors who have “inaccurate expectations of how much overhead is needed to run a not-for-profit”.��

“It leads to a sector starved of the necessary core funding required to create resilient charities,” Raskob says.��

Prospective donors can get a broad view of the financial workings of charities by going to the ACNC register, but making a decision based on this information alone is problematic.��

The most recent annual information statement for a well regarded charity such as the St Vincent de Paul Society of NSW, for instance, indicates it had $126 million in revenue and $133 million in expenses, over half of which were employee expenses.

The role of charity marketing firms 

Another sticking point for potential donors that ����Vlog reported on last year is that it’s often not the actual charity contacting us but a marketing firm hired by the charity. The people we’re hearing from aren’t actually involved in the cause, they’re just getting paid by the hour – or perhaps even earning bonuses based on how many people they persuade to donate.��

We want to be big-hearted and giving, but this complicates matters.��

The ACNC spokesperson says charities are responsible for the actions of the marketing firms they hire to ask for money in their name, adding that donor concerns are not without merit.��

“There have been examples of external fundraising agencies using questionable tactics to get donors to commit to regular ongoing donations. This can impact public goodwill and damage the reputation of both the charity and the wider sector.”

But Raskob says outsourcing the mission-critical aspect of fundraising – getting people to donate – is often good governance.��

“It can be much more cost effective for a charity to engage a professional agency that has people specially trained in face-to-face fundraising, than for the charity to hire, train and manage a team of its own. This way, more of the money raised can go into service, instead of staff overheads.” 

Raskob also makes the point that fundraising campaigns tend to be cyclical and it’s more cost efficient to hire a team of fundraisers when they’re needed, rather than having them permanently on the payroll.

How to check if a charity is legit

FIA provided ����Vlog with the following tips for exercising due diligence on a charity you’re considering.��

• of Fundraising Institute Australia. Members must abide by the FIA Code.��
• Check with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. A non-profit that displays the ACNC Charity Tick has passed a screening process for legitimacy.
• If you’re looking for a tax deduction for your donation, ensure the charity is with the ATO.
• If fundraisers approach you on the street, make sure they’re wearing a badge that shows who they’re working for and that it matches their identity.��
• Be wary of unsolicited emails, phone calls or approaches from charities you haven’t heard from before.��

The post Can that charity asking for your money be trusted?  appeared first on ����Vlog.

On this page:

• Different causes for different people
• The marketing of ethics
• Making ethics easy for consumers
• Apps for ethical consumers
• What ����Vlog members say
• What does ethical mean to you?

At the same time, Australia saw a surging interest in green and ethical products and companies, from cause-related marketing to greener choices in everything from supermarket products to whitegoods.

But in 2024, just how are we doing when it comes to ethical consumption?

There’s evidence to show that ethical consumerism is still a phenomenon. ‘Sustainable’ and ‘fair trade’ labels are commonly seen on products on supermarket shelves. Then there are the restaurants, clothing labels, green energy companies and even super funds that claim to be creating opportunities for us to spend more responsibly.

But the not-so-good news is that while many consumers say they think it’s important for brands and companies to behave ethically, our actual behaviour when we shop suggests otherwise.��

While many of us express pro-social and ethical attitudes, when it comes to the crunch plenty of us don’t put our money where our mouth is when it comes to buying or investing in more ethical options.

Does the ethical consumer even exist?

Professor Timothy Devinney, co-author of ‘The Myth of the Ethical Consumer’, argues that conscience-driven shopping does not exist. He says there’s a belief that values drive our purchasing behaviour, but in reality many other things also influence consumer behaviour, such as price, quality and value.

Devinney believes there’s a disconnect between the values people express and the actual uptake of ethical products on the market.

In his book he describes an experiment designed to assess consumer behaviour using the example of fair trade coffee. It showed an individual’s preference for “fair trade” products could be influenced by how public the purchase was.��

When coffee shop customers had to ask for fair trade coffee, only 1% were motivated to do so. However, if they were asked at the counter if they would like the fair trade coffee, 30% were happy to buy it, and if they were asked in earshot of another customer, the rate jumped to 70%.

Different causes for different people

According to Devinney, people will make what they think are “better” choices in one area of their lives but not necessarily in another – for example, someone who is passionate about buying free-range eggs but doesn’t recycle.

Price and convenience are also factors for most of us. Michael Volkov, lecturer in consumer behaviour at Deakin University, argues that consumers are price sensitive in the current economic climate, particularly when it comes to ethical products.

“Consumers are ethical up to a certain point. The research has found that there is a threshold. That threshold will be different for different people, of course,” he says.

The marketing of ethics

Volkov says ethical decision-making is of longstanding interest in the marketing industry. Results from a large survey published in a recent issue of the ‘Journal of Marketing Management’ suggest consumers might be motivated to buy products if they believe their purchase will contribute to reducing injustice, indicating in some situations ethical marketing can influence purchase decisions.

However, this study involved asking customers whether they had bought an ethical product in the past two weeks – and as Devinney notes, what we say about ourselves is not always in line with our actual behaviour.

Also, a product that is marketed as ethical to consumers may not always be the real deal.

In 2015 it was discovered that Volkswagen had intentionally programmed 11 million engines marketed as “clean diesel” to activate certain emissions controls only during laboratory testing. The cars produced up to 40 times more emissions in real-world driving conditions.

More than 90,000 cars have since been recalled in Australia, with affected models including the Volkswagen Golf, Polo, Jetta and Passat.

In two recent settlements with the US Federal Trade Commission and the United States Department of Justice, Volkswagen agreed to pay $US14.7 billion to settle allegations of cheating emissions tests and deceiving customers.��

It will cost a further $US10.03 billion to compensate US consumers who accept a lease termination and buyback of nearly 500,000 models from 2009–2015 with 2.0 litre diesel engines. Additionally, Volkswagen will spend $US4.7 billion investing in green technology.

But did the scandal damage any trust held by consumers? Volkov says that, surprisingly, brands like Volkswagen often only experience short-term pain. “There may be a bit of consumer backlash. There may be a certain amount of social media [backlash], but eventually it subsides.”

Making ethics easy for consumers

Some organisations have made it their mission to help consumers make ethical choices. Jeremy Meltzer is the founder of , an organisation that works to bridge the gap between retailers and non-government organisations.

i=Change allows consumers to shop as they normally would online. Participating retailers then contribute $1 for every item purchased to an NGO on a list of available charities. Meltzer says this model allows consumers to feel better about their purchases as well as being able to see in real time how and where the funds are being raised.

He believes that to get customers enthused about making a difference with their buying choices, it has to be easy.

“I think how we’ve been able to address that in i=Change is that the customer doesn’t have to do anything different – they’re shopping anyway.”

Apps for ethical consumers

is an Australian fashion app that provides ethical ratings for clothing brands, making it easier for consumers to buy ethically.

Run by a small team in Sydney, it relies on volunteers to research the ratings. The brands are rated on their impact on “people, the planet, and animals”, based on publicly available information, including certifications and accreditation such as Ethical Clothing Australia as well as credible independent research.

Co-founder and CEO Gordon Renouf says shoppers can create positive change on issues they care about by choosing better-performing brands or by avoiding the worst.

“Our goal is to make it much easier for consumers to find products they love from brands who do better by people, the environment and animals.”

The app is available to download for free in the App Store and Google Play Store.

, a supermarket app and online guide, provides information on the environmental and social record of companies behind popular brands in Australian supermarkets.

What ����Vlog members say

While there are many studies on consumer behaviour and ethical consumption (often with conflicting theories and conclusions), here at ����Vlog as part of our Ethical Consumption Review we surveyed 4691 members to see what you think about ethical consumption. The results showed a high level of interest.

• 73% agree or strongly agree with the phrase, “It is important to buy environmentally friendly whenever I can”.
• 87% believe quality is more important than price.
• 70% are interested in ethical products and claims.
• 85% are interested in misleading product and marketing claims.

What does ethical mean to you?

����Vlog asked some of its staff what they think it means to be ethical.��

“When it comes to clothes, I know I can’t entirely avoid getting items that come from countries with questionable manufacturing conditions. So instead I try to avoid excessive consumption – I don’t have a huge wardrobe, and I’m a fan of stores like Cream who take old clothes and repurpose them into new garments.” – Daniel

“To me, being ‘ethical’ as a consumer means purchasing products (and therefore supporting companies) whose actions are compatible with my morals and personal beliefs. That is, I believe in workers’ rights, so shopping ethically for me would, in that case, mean purchasing from a company that treats its workers well.” – Sarah

“Knowing that the decisions that I make when purchasing or seeking out products and services are coming from sources that have good morals and quality practices put in place. For example, I try to seek out independent free-range egg producers so I can know I’m supporting local farmers that treat their animals with care and respect.” – Erin

“For me, being ethical means acting honourably and with respect.” – Chris

“Transparency is a necessary pre-condition to shopping ethically … it is not possible for me to shop ethically if I don’t know how the companies I’m considering buying from treat their workers.” – Sarah

The post Are consumers as ethical as they say they are? appeared first on ����Vlog.