Human rights

Human rights

As one of Australia and New Zealand’s largest banks, there are a range of ways we may influence and impact the human rights of stakeholders. We have both a responsibility to respect human rights across our activities and relationships and opportunities to support and advance human rights.

Our Human Rights Position Statement and Action Plan (PDF 1MB) sets out Westpac Group’s commitments and approach to respecting and advancing human rights and the actions we are taking. This is our fourth Human Rights Position Statement and it now integrates our position on child safeguarding.

Our human rights approach is focused on our commitments across our roles as a:

1. Financial services provider
2. Lender
3. Employer
4. Purchaser of goods and services
5. Supporter of communities
6. Child safe organisation.

Salient human rights issues

Our salient human rights issues are those with the potential to cause the most harm to people and have the most negative impact on their human rights, from our activities and relationships.

 

One of the actions in our Human Rights Position Statement and Action Plan (PDF 1MB) is to refresh of our salient human rights issues assessment, bringing in broader stakeholder input.

Until this is complete, we will report on our progress addressing the salient issues identified in FY21. This is included in our annual sustainability performance reporting.

Modern slavery

Modern slavery covers a range of exploitation, including human trafficking, slavery, forced labour, child labour along with slavery-like practices.

Our 2023 Modern Slavery Statement meets our reporting requirements under both the Australian Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) and the United Kingdom’s Modern Slavery Act (2015) and describes the actions Westpac Group has taken to address modern slavery risk in both our operations and supply chain in FY23.

 

Our progress

We report regularly and aim to be as transparent as possible to enable stakeholders to compare our relative performance over time.

Find out how we seek to create economic, social and environmental impact in our Annual Report and Climate Report.