What You Can Do

Your super fund almost certainly holds shares in companies that offshore heavily. The Big 4 banks, Telstra, and major insurers are among the largest holdings in most Australian super funds.

When these companies cut local jobs to boost margins, the profits flow partly to you as a shareholder — but the wages disappear from the Australian economy. You benefit as an investor while losing as a worker and taxpayer.

Ask your super fund what their position is on investee companies offshoring Australian jobs. Some funds have stewardship teams that engage with companies on employment practices.

If you work at a large Australian company, you can ask management directly about their offshoring plans. Questions worth raising:

• What percentage of our workforce is based overseas?
• Are any Australian roles being considered for offshoring?
• What is the company's policy on vendors that subcontract work offshore?
• Has customer satisfaction changed since roles were moved offshore?

Companies rarely volunteer this information. But they are required to disclose some of it in modern slavery statements and annual reports — that's where much of our data comes from.

Government outsourcing is a political choice. The $20.8 billion spent annually on external vendors and service providers is taxpayer money that could fund permanent public service roles. Politicians respond to constituent pressure.

Points worth raising with your federal or state MP:

• Why are government departments outsourcing work to firms that subcontract offshore?
• Should there be transparency requirements for ASX200 companies on offshore workforce numbers?
• Why aren't modern slavery statements required to disclose total offshore headcount?
• Should government contracts require a minimum percentage of work to be performed in Australia?

Find your MP at aph.gov.au.

Right now, there is no requirement for Australian companies to disclose how many workers they have offshore. Modern slavery statements mention supply chains but not workforce geography. Annual reports bury headcount data or omit it entirely.

Until companies are required to report offshore headcount the same way they report executive pay or carbon emissions, the public picture will stay incomplete. Transparency is the prerequisite for informed choices — by consumers, investors, and policymakers.

If you work at a company that offshores and have information that isn't public — internal announcements, vendor contracts, workforce numbers — you can share it anonymously.

We verify all data against public sources before publishing. We don't publish leaked documents directly. We use tips to point us toward information we can then verify through public channels.