Andrew Forrest speaks out on Uighur rights abuses

Andrew Forrest’s philanthropic foundation has explicitly condemned human rights abuses against ethnic Muslim Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang region.

Andrew Forrest. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest’s philanthropic foundation has explicitly condemned human rights abuses against ethnic Muslim Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang region, a decade after establishing its Walk Free campaign to end modern slavery.

But it warned against singling out China in a proposed customs amendment banning goods produced with forced labour, saying the problem was not limited to one country.

The Forrest family’s Minderoo Foundation said in a submission to a Senate inquiry that it was now a member of the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uighur Region, which it ­quietly joined last year.

Mr Forrest’s daughter Grace Forrest, a co-founder of Minderoo’s Walk Free initiative to end modern slavery, said that as a member of the coalition the foundation “acknowledges and condemns forced labour and human rights abuses in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region”.

Mr Forrest has previously been reluctant to criticise human rights abuses in Xinjiang, arguing in July 2019 that he didn’t have enough information about China’s treatment of Uighurs.

“I’m not close enough to make an authoritative statement on any country, but I can firmly say that every country has modern slavery,” he said at the time.

“If there are governments looking the other way on it, whatever country, we need as citizens of that country or partners of that country to say it must end.”

The Senate’s Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee is examining a proposed bill introduced by independent Senator Rex Patrick to ban the importation of goods produced by Uighur forced labour.

The foundation said “action to prevent the importation of goods made with forced labour in China would support Australia in meeting its international obligations to prevent modern slavery”.

But it said all products produced with forced labour should be banned under the proposed bill, not just those from China.

Senator Patrick said Mr Forrest had been “very low key to date” in his support for Uighurs. “I’m very glad to see him weighing in publicly to support my bill. I’d be even happier to work with him on a philanthropic public campaign to ensure there is major party support for it,” he said.

Human Rights Watch, in its submission to the inquiry, said the Morrison government should introduce a presumption of forced labour in relation to goods imported from Xinjiang, and those made with inputs from Xinjiang.

“There are credible complaints of forced labour of Uighur and other Muslim minorities from Xinjiang,” Human Rights Watch’s Australian director Elaine Pearson said.