Auditing the Australian Response to Trafficking

Abstract

This article was written in response to the April 2009 publication of the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) audit of the management of the Australian Government Action Plan to Eradicate Trafficking in Persons. It considers both the material presented to the audit office from a range of government agencies and the findings and recommendations arising from the audit. The article seeks to identify significant concerns regarding the operation of the existing policy response. It also identifies key implications of an audit report — a managerialist tool — being the most comprehensive official assessment of the policy response to date. While two other national reports were produced on the Australian response to human trafficking in the months following the tabling of the ANAO Report, it is argued that both reports primarily produced important, but limited, trend and implementation data. Drawing on research nationally and internationally in the area of human trafficking, migration and exploitation, this article argues that assessment of the effectiveness of policy implementation is not naturally or logically connected in any direct way to the eradication of human trafficking. It also argues that the absence of any commitment to evaluating the impact of, and alternatives to, the current response runs the risk of further entrenching the current counter-trafficking framework with limited regard to the broader impacts of this approach.