Understanding Modern Slavery Risks: A Foundations Course

About this course.

This course gives construction business owners, managers and procurement or supply-chain staff a practical foundation in modern slavery risk. It begins by defining modern slavery as a set of serious crimes and human rights abuses — forced labour, debt bondage, deceptive recruiting, human trafficking and related forms of severe exploitation — and draws a clear line between those crimes and the ordinary problems of a poorly run workplace. It then explains why the construction sector, with its layered subcontracting, its reliance on imported materials and products, and its heavy use of labour hire and migrant labour, is widely recognised as carrying elevated modern slavery risk.

The course sets out what Australia's Commonwealth Modern Slavery Act requires: which entities must report, what an annual modern slavery statement is meant to contain, and which bodies administer and oversee the scheme. It is careful to send you to the primary source to confirm the current reporting threshold and requirements rather than relying on a figure quoted here. It then turns to the large majority of construction businesses that are not required to report but that sit inside the supply chains of those that are, and explains why understanding and managing your own risk still matters commercially and ethically. Finally, it walks through practical first steps — knowing your supply chain, doing supplier due diligence, using contract terms sensibly, listening to workers, and responding properly when you find a problem — and it explains the jurisdictional picture, including the national reach of the Commonwealth Act and the separate New South Wales framework.