New Zealand’s Modern Slavery Bill is moving through Parliament and would, if passed in its current form, force large companies to publish annual modern slavery statements for the first time. Entities operating in the country with consolidated annual revenue over NZ$100 million would fall inside the regime, covering domestic firms and overseas businesses that carry on business in New Zealand.
The wood processing sector was pointed to the bill through the latest newsletter of the Wood Processors and Manufacturers Association of New Zealand (WPMA), whose CEO, Mark Ross, told members the industry broadly backs what the legislation sets out to do. He flagged concern, though, that parts of the current draft pull away from the established international reporting frameworks that many large firms already use: “The intent of the Bill is broadly supported,” Ross said.
For companies already reporting under recognised overseas regimes, Ross argued, the better path is to accept equivalent reporting rather than stand up a separate New Zealand process on top of it. WPMA will continue to monitor the bill as it moves through the House and will update members as the details firm up.
“There is a strong case for allowing equivalent reporting rather than creating parallel processes,” Ross said.
The statements would set out an entity’s structure, operations and supply chains, alongside the risks and any actual incidents of modern slavery uncovered. Each would also cover the due diligence and remediation undertaken, the complaints received, and the training provided, all published on a publicly accessible register so the disclosures sit open to customers, investors and the public.
The New Zealand bill goes further than the Australian and UK models it draws on, turning on actual incidents rather than risk alone, and carrying civil penalties, a director and senior manager liability framework, and ministerial oversight. The responsible minister would report to Parliament each year on referrals, investigations, prosecutions and victim support, with modern slavery named a priority for the Human Rights Commission.
It also amends the Public Finance Act 1989 to lock entities convicted of offences out of government procurement, a commercial sanction that bites hardest in building and construction, where public contracts run deep, and timber sits in the supply chain. For a sector that sells heavily into government-funded projects, the procurement bar carries as much weight as the penalties themselves.
Co-sponsored by National’s Greg Fleming and Labour’s Camilla Belich, the bill cleared its path to Parliament on 10 February 2026 as the first member’s bill to bypass the ballot, drawing the backing of more than 60 non-executive MPs to do so. It now sits before a select committee taking public submissions, and should it pass before the general election, the regime would start in early 2027, with the first statements due in the 2028 reporting year, six months after the legislation takes effect.
For an industry whose supply chains run from forest to port across multiple jurisdictions, the reporting net would catch the larger growers, processors and exporters trading above the threshold, at a time when timber supply chains are already under scrutiny over laundered and illegally sourced wood. The Global Slavery Index counts 50 million people in modern slavery worldwide, including 8,000 in New Zealand.
