Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Customs Legislation Amendment (Controlled Trials and Other Measures) Bill 2022. I'll keep it very brief, but I'll start by placing on the record that the Australian Greens will be supporting this bill. This bill allows for the trials of new policies to be tested before they are widely implemented. This allows time and space to identify issues, gaps or room for improvement before the policy is rolled out across the country. For obvious reasons, making small tweaks to a controlled trial is much easier than making these changes once the policy has been implemented more broadly. Further, it will allow for companies to play with more innovative methods and technologies in a controlled environment under the supervision of the government. This type of framework is often called a regulatory sandbox, and, as the minister stated in her second reading speech:

Regulatory sandboxes ensure regulation keeps pace with industry developments, remains fit for purpose and does not become a barrier to innovation and productivity.

I note that this bill was introduced under the previous government, and this version of the bill was also sent to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. In this process, there were concerns expressed about the reliance of the bill on regulation. In the previous form of this bill, the qualification criteria were to be determined through regulation by the Comptroller-General of Customs. The committee was of the view that the matter was significant, as the qualification criteria should be included in the legislation unless there is sufficient reason for it to be included in regulations. The Greens are happy to see that this has been removed from the bill that is now before us, as the reliance on regulation, which does not face the same scrutiny as bills, is an issue of transparency. The Greens strongly support the transparency of this parliament and, indeed, of the government as a whole.

I would also like to highlight my colleague Senator Steele-John's amendment to this bill, which will now insert a new section into the act to prohibit the importation of goods produced by forced labour. My colleague will go into further detail on this, but I just want to highlight that the International Labour Organization estimated that there were 46.6 million people living in modern slavery in 2021, of which 27.6 million were in forced labour, with 17.3 million in the private sector. Brands that have been found to be benefitting from forced labour include Adidas, Apple, Calvin Klein, Google, H&M, Nike, Puma and Zara, and the list goes on and on. The banning of the importation of goods produced by forced labour is a step that this government can take towards respecting human rights and the dignity of everyone across the globe.