"'Tainted money': Thousands of businesses brace for slavery crackdown", 7 July 2019

A world-leading slavery expert has called for profits to be stripped from companies that fail to address slavery in their supply chains as thousands of Australia's largest businesses race to comply with what is already the toughest anti-slavery legislation globally.

...Kevin Hyland, the UK's former anti-slavery commissioner who helped draft Australia's legislation, said the name-and-shame list was a good start, but more punitive measures were needed here and in other Group of 20 nations.

Australia's anti-slavery legislation will capture major companies such as supermarket giants Coles, Woolworths, 7-Eleven, brewing dynasty Coopers, the Sydney Fish Markets, Australian retailer Cotton On, as well as motor dealers National Capital Motors, and two of the major sporting codes - the AFL and NRL....

The big four consultancy firms, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and Pricewaterhousecoopers, have set up modern slavery units to deal with the expected flood of compliance requests before 3500 companies are due to deliver their 2019-20 reports by November 2020.

...In an audit of more than 4000 factories this year, Wesfarmers found 82 critical breaches of the act....

"One of the critical breaches we are most concerned about is bribery of auditors," Wesfarmers' sustainability manager, Fiona Lawrie, said. "If an auditor is bribed from the get-go, then we will have very little confidence in the supplier doing the right thing."

The retail giant, which owns Kmart, Target, Bunnings and Officeworks, said suppliers of its home-brand products would be the most closely scrutinised.

Mr Hyland said Australia was now a world leader in anti-slavery legislation, which will capture supply chains that account for 40 million people and $150 billion each year.