Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week, in London, I had the honour of speaking at the Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum and I participated in a panel on human trafficking. Firstly, I congratulate Congressman Robert Pittenger and Anne Basham for bringing trafficking and slavery into the security forum. In my speech I underscored the connections between national security, human trafficking and slavery. These issues are inextricably linked, but they are not often discussed together, and certainly not yet actioned together, but they should be. National security today is truly multidimensional, and all dimensions need to be addressed together. Not only did the forum address slavery and human trafficking but it also addressed supply chains, critical minerals and new energy technologies.

Together with like-minded friends, Australians have fought many wars to preserve democratic freedoms and individual liberties; however, we are not yet fighting together for freedom from slavery for millions of men, women and children who produce the goods we now rely on. Nations, like China, are selling us goods—for our wind turbines, solar panels, electric batteries, cars, phones, tablets and even joint strike fighters—with components that are riddled with the slave labour of millions of the world's most vulnerable people, including children, but still, as a nation, we are turning a blind eye. I believe it is incumbent upon us all, particularly here in this place, to deal simultaneously with security and slavery issues, and to ensure that our clean energy technologies, defence materiel and particularly the goods and services that we rely on, are slavery free.