OPINION – Unregulated labour hire: A magnet for modern slavery

A RECENT Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) blitz in Queensland’s Gatton region should serve as a wake-up call for New South Wales.

Operation Topaz uncovered systemic labour rights breaches among labour hire firms, with every single provider investigated demonstrating some non-compliance.

Contraventions included failure to pay minimum and overtime rates, withholding pay slips, and poor record-keeping.

The FWO recovered wages for 67 workers and the Australian Taxation Office raised $25 million in liabilities for unpaid taxes and superannuation.

These results expose the fragility of labour rights protection in Australia’s horticulture workforce.

NSW’s lack of labour hire regulation makes workers even more vulnerable.

Nowhere is this vulnerability at greater risk of exploitation than in Coffs Harbour and the Nambucca Valley, today the epicentre of Australia’s booming blueberry industry.

The glossy marketing of a ‘superfood’ obscures inconvenient truths: migrant workers crammed into overcrowded housing, passports confiscated, and wages gutted through deductions for transport and equipment.

Reports to my hotline, 1800 FREEDOM, and public reporting detail workers sleeping in pantries or converted toilets, paying $150 a week for squalid accommodation, and being overcharged for access to laundry, kitchen and bathroom facilities.

Many employers do the right thing.

But a NSW parliamentary inquiry has heard that dodgy labour hire firms are at the heart of issues in the blueberry workforce, sometimes issuing fake payslips, demanding upfront fees, and disappearing without paying workers.

An earlier study by the Fair Work Ombudsman found 61 percent of horticulture employers it examined in the Coffs Harbour and Grafton region breached workplace laws, with labour hire firms accounting for 91 percent of infringement notices nationwide.

All of this leads some workers to fall into modern slavery.

We receive calls for help from them through 1800 FREEDOM.

Many victims end up on the federal government’s Support for Trafficked People Program.

It’s clear that the failure to have any labour hire licensing in place in NSW is making Coffs Harbour and the Nambucca Valley a magnet for modern slavery.

It creates a regulatory vacuum that attracts exploitative operators, some of whom are moving to the region from adjacent states where licensing schemes are in place.

Migrant workers, particularly those on temporary work visas, are especially vulnerable to being trapped in modern slavery.

My latest annual report underscores the urgency: calls to the 1800 FREEDOM hotline surged 116 percent in the last financial year, with nearly half of all reports coming from temporary migrant workers.

This/next week the NSW Parliament’s Modern Slavery Committee will visit Coffs Harbour to consider these concerns.

Evidence presented will likely highlight systemic risks in rural and regional NSW, including deceptive recruitment, wage theft, and overcrowded housing.

Committee Chair Joe McGirr has previously described similar allegations as “disturbing,” noting that many migrant workers are subjected to conditions “akin to modern slavery.”

The inquiry is examining labour hire reform, visa settings, housing, and the resourcing of local support services – issues that remain critical as exploitation risks rise in regional communities.

One key element of the solution is clear: NSW must urgently legislate labour hire licensing and enforce compliance through regular inspections and meaningful penalties.

Without this, the state risks becoming a magnet for exploitative labour hire practices, undermining ethical businesses and setting back progress under the groundbreaking Modern Slavery Act passed in 2018.

Supermarkets, unions, industry associations, investors and consumers also have roles to play – encouraging effective regulation, demanding transparency in supply chains, and rejecting anti-competitive practices that rely on exploitation to falsely suppress the price of berries.

Every punnet of blueberries picked under these conditions carries a hidden cost: damaged human dignity.

Until NSW acts decisively, the sweet taste of blueberries will remain bitter for those who harvest them.

Dr James COCKAYNE, NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner