Attorney-General Michelle Rowland has announced the nation's modern slavery laws will be strengthened with substantial fines and criminal offences.
Under the government's changes, companies with an annual revenue of more than $100 million will be subject to a new criminal offence in addition to a new civil penalty that will be added to the existing Modern Slavery Act, which was last updated in 2018.
Companies will have a defence available if they can prove they took reasonable steps to prevent modern slavery, to protect businesses that try to do the right thing.
The size of fines companies could face will be determined following consultation, but is expected to be proportionate to the size of the company.
Freya Dinshaw, Associate Legal Director at the Human Rights Law Centre, said the announcement was a welcome and long-overdue step towards strengthening Australia's modern slavery laws.
"Most importantly, the proposed changes create a clear obligation on companies to take action to prevent modern slavery in their supply chains - this has the potential to drive real change to workers' lives," she said.
Australia's Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Chris Evans, said introducing criminal provisions sent a signal to businesses that they need to treat modern slavery with the seriousness it deserves.
An estimated 50 million people across the world are enslaved, according to the Global Slavery Index.
This includes people trapped in human trafficking and forced labour.
The changes will add "teeth" to the legislative framework, as Australians rightly expect that the products they buy are not made on the back of modern slavery, Ms Rowland said.
The changes will add "teeth" to the legislative framework, as Australians rightly expect that the products they buy are not made on the back of modern slavery, Ms Rowland said.
It comes weeks after the Trump administration proposed a 12.5 per cent tariff on Australian exports to the US, as part of new levies on 60 countries the White House claims have inadequate anti-slavery laws.
The higher US tariffs are expected to come into force this month when the current baseline 10 per cent levy imposed on Australia expires.
The nation's anti-slavery commissioner has previously accused the US of weaponising human rights issues for its own purposes, while acknowledging Australia needed to do more to prevent forced labour in supply chains.
Ms Rowland said the government had consistently made the case that tariffs on Australian products were unjustified but declined to say whether the tariffs and the modern slavery crackdown were connected.
"(The modern slavery reforms) follow extensive consultation, and I think that they will be widely welcomed by Australians, who don't want their supply chains in which they are consumers, to be tainted by modern slavery," she told ABC Radio National on Thursday.
In a submission to a US inquiry into the proposed tariff regime, the Business Council of Australia opposed the new levies on the grounds that Australia already had a robust regulatory framework to address modern slavery.
