This masthead has written about the scale of the berry industry on this coast: New South Wales grows about 86 per cent of a national blueberry crop worth $505 million, and the national handbook centres that production on Coffs Harbour. A parliamentary committee has now reported on the people who pick it.

What the report is

The NSW Legislative Council’s Modern Slavery Committee, chaired by Dr Joe McGirr MP, tabled Report no. 4, Modern slavery risks faced by temporary migrant workers in rural and regional New South Wales, on 6 August 2026. The committee self-referred the terms of reference to itself on 10 October 2024, prompted by the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner’s report Be Our Guests. It made 31 recommendations.

In his foreword the chair writes that too many temporary migrant workers have experienced or are at a serious risk of experiencing modern slavery in New South Wales, and that these workers provide essential services for regional industries and communities.

The recommendation that names this region

Recommendation 7 reads, in full:

“That the NSW Government urgently investigate the allegations of systemic labour exploitation and modern slavery in Coffs Harbour and the Nambucca Valley, in collaboration with relevant federal agencies. In doing so, agencies should engage in proactive information sharing.”

A recommendation to investigate is not a finding of guilt against anyone. It is the committee asking government to look. That distinction is the reason this story names no business, and the report does not name one either.

What the committee was told

The evidence behind Recommendation 7 comes from a submission by the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner, and the report attributes it to him throughout. We do the same. The committee records that the Commissioner told it some temporary migrants working as berry pickers in Coffs Harbour and the Nambucca Valley are being systematically exploited by a group of informal labour hire syndicates, with some cases involving widespread wage theft and the intimidation of workers.

The Commissioner estimated the number of syndicates in operation is small, the report says, but warned that the conduct of some has shown significant indicators of modern slavery, including forced labour, debt bondage, deceptive recruiting, and possibly trafficking in persons, servitude and sexual servitude.

On why they have not been caught, the report lists the methods the Commissioner described: sham and front corporate structures, bank accounts and invoicing; threats and intimidation “producing a culture of silence”; coordinated evasion of inspections and other enforcement actions; and coordinated resistance to the suggestion that there is a labour exploitation problem in the region, so that those suggesting there is such a problem are more easily marginalised. The committee also heard the businesses are possibly overseen offshore, through encrypted apps and social media.

The part local growers should read

Two passages complicate any reading of this as a story about farmers.

The first cuts the other way: the Commissioner observed “interlocking patterns of conduct” among the labour hire companies and syndicates, berry farm operators and owners, and buying entities in Coffs Harbour and the Nambucca Valley. That is an observation about a system, made to a committee, and it is not a finding about any particular operator.

The second is that producers can be on the receiving end. The report records that these labour hire companies may threaten local producers by withholding the supply of workers if the producer cooperates with authorities investigating labour exploitation. Regional Development Australia Mid North Coast made a related point on 12 August, backing licensing partly on behalf of compliant employers, some of whom report being undercut by non-compliant operators.

The regulatory hole

The committee heard that because New South Wales has no labour hire licensing scheme, there are “no real barriers” for these providers to enter the market, or for criminals or those with a history of abuse to start such a business.

Recommendation 6 asks the government to take urgent action to implement a labour hire licensing scheme as soon as possible, adopting a similar approach to that of Victoria, by establishing a labour hire authority to oversee licensing and regulation and building a scheme that can be harmonised with a future national one. Recommendation 5 asks for a co-regulatory approach to monitoring and compliance, including more information-sharing between state and federal agencies.

That last point has a sharp edge in the report. Complaints about this system were raised with a number of agencies, the committee records, including local councils, state and federal police, SafeWork NSW, the Fair Work Ombudsman and AUSTRAC. The Commissioner stated that “to date” those agencies have failed to disrupt or address it, and that because each was aware only of certain elements, no one has put the pieces together.

Our reading

Offered as opinion, on the sourced facts above. The striking thing is not that a committee found exploitation; inquiries into this subject usually do. It is Recommendation 7 existing at all. A parliamentary committee does not normally single out two named localities and ask government to go and investigate them, and the reason it did is set out plainly in the report: complaints were made to at least five kinds of agency and nothing was disrupted.

So the test now is narrow and checkable. The government has been asked to investigate this region, urgently, with federal agencies. Either that happens or it does not, and either the licensing scheme is legislated or it is not. We will follow both.

If this is happening to you, or to someone you know

These services are listed by Regional Development Australia Mid North Coast alongside its statement supporting licensing. Modern slavery can be hard to recognise, even for the person experiencing it.

  • 1800 FREEDOM (1800 37 33 36), the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner’s hotline for victims and survivors
  • Anti-Slavery Australia, 02 9514 8115 (Mon to Fri, 9am to 5pm), free legal and migration advice
  • Australian Red Cross Support for Trafficked People Program, 1800 113 015, case management and support
  • Fair Work Ombudsman, 13 13 94, free and confidential advice on pay, entitlements and workplace rights, and an anonymous tip-off line