DOING OUR BIT TO END THE RESOURCE CURSE

A Shorten Labor Government will legislate to establish a mandatory Extractive Industry Transparency Regime to ensure large Australian oil, gas and mining companies meet international best practice for tax transparency.

Many of the world’s poorest nations are endowed with minerals and resources of significant market value that are being developed by multinational corporations and governments.

Large scale extractive industry operations bring with them opportunities for local populations to grow national income and improve living standards for citizens.

Many of these nations, some within our region, including Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea, and Solomon Islands however are failing to meet millennium development goals, while equitable economic growth continues to evade them.

To ensure large Australian resources companies are good corporate citizens and maintain accounting and transparency systems that combat corruption, a Shorten Labor Government will legislate to require disclosure for payments arising from any activity involving exploration, prospection, discovery, development or extraction.

Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury Matt Thistlethwaite will this evening announce and outline the policy in a speech to the Australian Council For International Development’s National Conference.

A mandatory reporting regime for extractive industries will increase the availability of verifiable disaggregated information from company financial reports regarding payments made to governments. 

This information would build public accountability and trust in governments and companies, while increasing investor confidence and market stability.

This announcement builds on the strong work already being done by Labor’s shadow treasury and finance team through our multinational tax avoidance measures which are projected to improve the budget bottom line by $5.4 billion over the decade.

The Liberals have proven unwilling to tackle corruption or promote transparency in the extractive industries.

Labor’s policy to join the international movement towards greater tax transparency will ensure our system will meet international best practice and our nation does its bit to end the resource curse and raise living standards in developing countries.