Do we like them?

Do we like Target Australia?

Discount department store chain selling apparel and homewares, run with Kmart by Wesfarmers; based in Victoria, Australia

Our score: 5 out of 10. Mixed. A mainstream budget retailer with a record of small regulator fines and a $9m wage underpayment, offset by some action on supply-chain labour abuses. Not a company we'd cheer for.

Target is an old Australian discount department store, with roots going back to Lindsay's. Today it sits inside Wesfarmers' Kmart Group, next to Kmart. Wesfarmers has owned both since it bought Coles in 2007. In 2023 the two were merged behind the scenes, though the shop brands stayed separate.

Kmart is the star and Target is the weaker sibling. Wesfarmers' half-year report for the six months to December 2025 said Target had a tougher time, mainly in apparel. It also had a Queensland distribution centre closure. Target closed two stores in that half, leaving 122.

The dramas are mostly modest. In 2020 Wesfarmers revealed $9 million in Target staff underpayments, and the Fair Work Ombudsman said it would investigate. The ACCC took an undertaking in 2019 over faulty PlayStation complaints. Target was also fined $13,320 by the TGA for allegedly importing unlisted surgical masks.

On supply chains, Four Corners reported in 2019 that Target sourced cotton from Xinjiang. Target then said it had decided to stop orders from that mill. It now publishes a modern slavery statement and says it runs a cotton declaration program for suppliers. That is better than silence, but it is the company's own account.

Our score is 5. It's an ordinary big retailer with a patchy compliance history and some real efforts on ethical sourcing. We found nothing dramatic, good or bad, and not much that makes us want to back it with our money.