"Anti-slavery commissioner calls for tougher laws amid forced labour concerns for Ansell and Kmart", 17 February 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr Evans raised concerns about the treatment of workers at Ansell's Malaysian supplier, MediCeram, ...