Robertson Grant: Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Robertson Grant: Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:656;Page:5293] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I too rise with my colleagues to support my good colleague Maryan Street in bringing the Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill forward to the House. Tonight we have heard a number of references to the disgusting historical practice of slavery that is such a blight on the history of a number of nations in this world. 
Slavery is still a reality in a number of parts of the world. It is quite easy to stand in the House speak about it and say it is a problem and we have to keep the conversation going; it is something we need to talk about. But here tonight is our opportunity to take one small step to do something about it and to say that New Zealand is prepared to discuss this issue in a serious way in order to work out how we can reflect in our law our abhorrence of slavery and our desire not to consume products that are produced as a result of those who are in slavery. 
Today in the world particularly as my colleague Chris Carter said in West Africa there are numerous examples of slavery that I hope every single person in this House would find abhorrent. It has been said in the past that a lot of it is in countries like Angola the Sudan Somalia or Chad where there has been conflict. Slavery is somehow or other a result of that conflict. People have found themselves kidnapped or captured and then forced into work as part of war. But the reality is it is much more than that in Africa. It is actually in more peaceful countries like Côte d’Ivoire as Mr Groser said earlier or Burkina Faso or Benin. Those are countries that otherwise stand on the world stage as people whom we work with and deal with at places like the United Nations but in those countries today millions of people are in slavery. It is quite difficult for people to think of a situation where there are brokers scouting for children in poor families in rural areas in places like Benin in order to take children into slavery. There are people who are there doing that. 
Then we look around other parts of the world in places like in Nigeria where there are children’s markets. They have been found within the last 10 years where a special child-slave stock market is in place in Côte d’Ivoire. Child slaves in Africa are a reality today and this bill although it is a long way from being able to change it to stop it to end it is a chance for us as New Zealanders to say in our law that we do not accept products that are produced as a result of slave labour. 
We have heard that this is a difficult issue but it is only a difficult issue because we are not prepared to take the steps to have the conversation and to make the law. Lots of things that we debate in this House are difficult. Lots of bills that we send to select committees are not perfect when we send them to a select committee but we send them there so we can have a conversation where we can come up with language and a law that reflects the values I am hearing about tonight from across the House. It is great to hear the Minister say that slave labour is an issue of concern and an issue that we need to work on but we could send this bill to a select committee and actually make a difference. 
There is precedent for this bill in the world and I want to correct Mr Hutchison’s statement earlier on when he said the Alien Tort Claims Act is the US legislation that governed this issue. It is not; it is the US Tariff Act 1930 and it unambiguously bans the entry of goods produced by any form of forced labour including slave and child labour. So there is international precedent; it is there for us and we can keep working on it. Mr Groser also mentioned some of the other issues including the fact that we have trade and labour agreements in our free-trade agreements. That is a good start and a good way to engage with countries on the important issues of labour conditions. But this legislation would set the principles by which we would do that. 
Let us look at the definition and how it can be put in place. If it is good enough in schedule 1 of the Customs and Excise Act to ban goods produced by prison labour surely it is good enough to ban goods produced by slave labour.