ACRATH Advocacy Team with Fr Peter O’Neill (third from the right) at Parliament House.
In August, 14 members of ACRATH (Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans) including Columban Fr Peter O’Neill, Australian Peace, Ecology & Justice Coordinator walked the halls of Federal Parliament to advocate three broad topics: Modern Slavery Bill, Forced Marriage and Funding.
In preparing for the Advocacy trip, Fr Peter prepared a report critiquing the Australian Government’s Predeparture Guidebook for Seasonal Workers. The report was well received by Ministers and Senators.
At the meeting Fr Peter shared with the parliamentarians that he had recently met two workers from Vanuatu who returned to Australia for the second time early this year to work on a farm as fruit and vegetable pickers. They first came to Australia on the Seasonal Worker Programme in July 2014 with 20 other Ni-Vanuatu workers.
Over a period of seven weeks the 22 workers worked on six different farms. When they were not paid their salaries, they asked their employer who was the contractor for their wages. He refused and threatened to refer them to the police and have them deported. Sometimes they were only given one meal a day.
When one of the workers attended the nearby town’s community fair he came across the South Sea Islander Association’s stall which was flying the Vanuatu flag. The two people there listened in shock to the worker’s story of abuse. They acted immediately. They hired a van to rescue the 22 workers and rang the FWO (Fair Work Ombudsman). The local Pacific community rallied around to provide food and shelter for the workers while their case was being investigated by the government. After two weeks they were transferred to their new employer.
Sixteen months later the case against the contractor commenced in court. After four months the contractor was found guilty of violating the Fair Work Act and was ordered by the judge to pay the workers almost $80,000 in outstanding wages. The Federal Court issued the contractor with a fine of $227,000. The contractor declared bankruptcy and until this day he has not paid the workers their salary, neither has he paid the fine.
Advocacy points
ACRATH believes positive change has grown out of the genuine collaboration between government and civil society. Our Advocacy agenda addressed three broad topics:
The Modern Slavery Bill is currently before the Australian Parliament. ACRATH noted its pleasure at the inclusion of:
- Annual reporting on risks of modern slavery in supply chains by large companies and actions to address those risks.
- The inclusion of government reporting on procurement
- The establishment of an Anti-Slavery Business Engagement Unit to manage implementation.
Advocacy point 1: That the appointment of an Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner with oversight of the implementation of the Act be included in the current Bill. We urged that this Commissioner be independent, support business as a trusted advisor, encourage best practice in the prevention of slavery and human trafficking, and promote public awareness.
ACRATH advocated for further legislation (after the current Bill is enacted) to include:
Advocacy point 2: The licencing of labour hire firms to address exploitation currently being experienced by overseas workers. These workers can suffer from coercion when they do not know their rights. They are often underpaid and can even be offered fewer hours of work than was promised. They also can experience inadequate living conditions. (Related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1.3 and 8.7).
Advocacy point 3: The establishment of a National Compensation Scheme to eliminate inconsistencies currently in place across State and Territory schemes and enable compensation/restitution for the full harm experienced by trafficked persons.
Forced Marriage
There have been 173 referrals of forced marriage to the Australian Federal Police, with the number growing steadily since 2013. ACRATH has written, trialled and implemented the “My Rights - My Future: Forced Marriage” education program for schools, and continues its collaborative work on Forced Marriage.
Advocacy point 4: The establishment of a national approach to Forced Marriage education in schools to ensure awareness-raising education on forced marriage amongst educators and high school aged students. (Related to SDGs 5.3).
Funding
ACRATH’s application for renewed Government funding for 2018-19 has been unsuccessful. We believe that the current 12 month funding cycle compromises effective NGO work on crime prevention, advocacy and support of trafficked persons. The current competitive funding model is counter to the cooperative and collaborative approach currently practised among counter trafficking NGOs.
Advocacy point 5: We sought a three - five year funding cycle from the Department of Home Affairs budget - covering the National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking and Slavery. This would enable funded NGOs to undertake their work in a systematic and productive way.
Outcomes from our Advocacy effort
- Independent Commissioner? We were in Parliament House while elements of the Modern Slavery Act were being hotly contested; we were an energetic part of that debate.
- Licensing of labour hire firms? The presence in our ACRATH Team of the two representatives from the ASSI (Association of South Sea Islanders) Port Jackson assisted us in making a strong case to address the exploitation of overseas workers. Their presence also highlighted the shameful Blackbirding history in Australia.
- A federal compensation scheme? Our long term colleague, Professor Jennifer Burn, presented a new paper on this to the National Roundtable this week in Parliament House. Jen reminded us that compensation provides validation of wrong done, and financial assistance on the road to healing.
- Forced marriage & schools? We have developed new steps for our work in schools raising awareness of forced marriage and of strategies to address the problem.
- Funding support? We have some leads to follow up, but each lead seems to involve a lot of work finding funding sources, time lines and project expectations. There is no quick fix on this.
We returned home with thorough write ups of 66 meetings. These write ups mention more than 100 follow up tasks for us. This will form the basis of our national advocacy work for the coming months.
Christine Carolan is the Executive Officer for ACRATH.
Listen to Going into bat in Canberra
Related links
- Read more from The Far East, October 2018
