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Australia in the Context
of a Sustainable Asia:
MS CASWELL: Andrew Petersen certainly outlined a dramatic generational change through his own life experiences, from Stockholm in 1972 when he was a youngster until now. The optimism of youth suggests for me that we have come a long way in understanding sustainability and we should be optimistic about it, not pessimistic. He talked about the issues of governance in support of sustainability. He talked about some personal experience of appropriateness or inappropriateness of the transfer of legal forms and the need to support whatever legal frameworks you establish, especially in developing countries—and that perhaps there are some lessons to be learned there about Australia and Asia. He told us there were 43,000 events, either meetings or reports, over two years. Let us hope that somehow we can turn those into real actions on the ground. I would like to finish my comments by saying that he really reinforced that good governance has to be everywhere. The fact that a world summit, with so many actors and so many parts of society represented, can come to such a conclusion clearly showed that we have to get off our high horses and do something about it right around the planet. Let us have some questions and comments now. QUESTION: Kel Dundas from RMIT University. My comments relate to Johannesburg. I had the opportunity of talking to Andrew at the business forums in Johannesburg. I was very interested to hear Michael Williamson going through a list of outcomes. But it was quite surprising that the one outcome that he did not talk about—and the only one that was a new outcome and was not actually a restatement of many of the outcomes from Rio or a restatement of the millennium goals—was the one that related to corporate accountability. Therefore, I was very pleased to hear Andrew talking about corporate responsibility and corporate accountability, and the outcomes or the actions that were in the plan of implementation. But I have to disagree with you, Andrew, because I do not believe that the plan of action excluded the opportunity for developing an international framework on corporate responsibility and corporate accountability; because, under the globalisation section, there is actually a paragraph which does leave the window open for the opportunity of developing an international framework for corporate responsibility and corporate accountability.
Obviously, if you get two lawyers in a room and you ask them to interpret that, they will come up with three different opinions! So, I would not disagree with you. I think there is a capacity. But, it depends on what the world community in its sovereign state ultimately determines those words actually mean. Putting aside the meaning of the word 'including', to the best of my recollection, there was much debate about what the expression 'actively promote' meant. QUESTION: Peter Hayward from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. I had the pleasure of working with Mike on the Australian delegation in Johannesburg, so have some similar memories and sympathies for some of the things that he expressed. I would like to make a comment and then ask a question. The comment is on Andrew's listing of the reports that the UN had produced. He seemed to indicate that this was something that lawyers were replicating domestically. I would just say that he should think about who is writing those reports internationally—they are mostly done by lawyers. My question is a simple one. It follows on from the previous question. Do the panellists think that international regulation to create corporate accountability would be a good thing? Mr WILLIAMSON: My answer is very short and very quick: no, I do not think we need a super watchdog. I think it is the responsibility of governments and the responsibility of corporations if they do not follow the rules. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is a very powerful weapon. Speaking as a person that formerly worked for an American-owned company in Australia doing business in Asia, it provided a set of rules which directed our behaviour. The sad thing is that not every other country has similar legislation. I think that it is the responsibility of individual countries to have that sort of legislation. MR PETERSEN: My concern as a lawyer is: who watches the watcher? I would be very concerned that there would be an agency set up that would need to have a certain amount of accountability and transparency in itself. Therefore, if that could be assured, then that ultimately would be a matter for the business community and the world at large to agree to. My personal view is that it is fraught with problems. It also denies sovereign states their very existence. Aligned with that, though, is the issue of transnational corporations being exactly that—transnational. Therefore, the notion of boundaries in relation to their activities is something that is incredibly difficult to contend with. So, here is a lawyer giving you two answers. MS CASWELL: Are there any more comments about this rather important topic? QUESTION: There has been a fair bit of talk in this session about the language that came out of the summit, and the degree of understanding from the summit of the various terms that came out in the report. I wonder if either of the speakers can comment on what process there is now going forward from the summit for reviewing that language, and the common understanding that might come out of the implementation. Mr WILLIAMSON: Having regard to what my involvement was in Johannesburg, better people to answer that question might be someone like Peter—who is still involved in the ongoing implementation of the plan—or some of our friends from Environment Australia, like Phillip or Richard Webb. In terms of the language, one of the things that is inevitable in these sort of situations is that it is a document of compromise. I think debate always focuses on the language that would be the most acceptable—or the least unacceptable—to all the involved parties. MR PETERSEN: I would agree with that. Ultimately, it is a matter for government to foster discussion about amendments to clarify uncertainties in the wordings of documents. Certainly, in New South Wales, we have a fair degree of uncertainty, because the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act has one definition of ESD, the Protection of the Environment Operations Act has another, and the Local Government Act has yet a different one. Then, to complicate things further, you have various local councils interpreting what they understand ESD to be. Certainly, I think the meaning of the precautionary principle definitely needs some revisiting. Let us not forget the judiciary, another layer of legal opinion that has interpreted the precautionary principle in New South Wales. They did that during 1993 and 1994; we have not heard anything from them since. As far as understanding what those terms mean and how they are defined, there is still a great deal of uncertainty. This is especially the case when the development and property industry within New South Wales has to apply ESD when dealing with particular statutory instruments and or pieces of legislation. I would very much encourage a national approach, so that a business does not have this issue of what does New South Wales say about ESD and what does Victoria say about ESD. It is a national issue; it is not an issue that is predicated upon individual politics about what can actually be achieved as a result within each individual state. QUESTION: Fiona Wain. I wanted to revisit that question of corporate governance on an international scale, which, firstly, would not work, because, as Andrew said, it really conflicts with sovereign issues. But, more importantly, we have international business bodies, such as the ICC and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. To see how that works under the umbrella of the Business Action for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg was really quite important; you had companies on the forefront driving home the importance of sustainability and their role in championing it, both within their sector and within countries and regions of the world. If you step back just a fraction and look at the governance that is in place from, say, the insurance, financing and investment sector, there is a lot of control already there with things like the sectoral approach of the International Council on Mining and Minerals. We do not need another world body. I really have to concur with the two speakers. MS CASWELL: Any further comments? MR PETERSEN: If I could add to that: I concur with my CEO on that point. Nothing narks me more at the moment than NGOs and indigenous persons complaining about their lot and plight, particularly in Australia, in relation to the approaches that mining companies have to their well being. It is a fact that, ever since Mabo in 1993, the mining industry has tried extremely hard, albeit in flawed ways in certain circumstances, to engage with indigenous persons at a local level to try and achieve an effective outcome which does not resulted in, or arise out of, litigation. I think that is incredibly healthy, in relation to members of civil society being able to effectively engage in what is appropriate governance, so far as business is concerned—to engage in debate, dialogue and actually effect an appropriate outcome. That may sound like I am being an apologist for the mining community, but the reality is that they have achieved outcomes in cases where legislation actually failed. MS CASWELL: Could I ask both of you what you thought was the most important outcome for business from the summit? MR PETERSEN: The fact that it was there and was able to participate. MR WILLIAMSON: It is so evident that business was not there at Rio in 1992. As I said in my presentation, the tragedy would have been if business had not been at Johannesburg . Ninety per cent of the money that is needed to solve the problems of sanitation, water and energy is going to come from the private sector and from investment money; only a tenth of it is going to come from overseas development aid. Business needs to be involved—absolutely. QUESTION: I have a question in relation to the involvement of minorities and women in corporate governance. I spoke to someone from Opportunities International yesterday. He explained to me that many success stories actually involve women in developing countries. When we look at the presenters over the past two days, they all happen to be male, whereas mostly women organised and moderated the sessions. Then, when we look at corporate governance, one of the critical factors for success is that the boards of companies and the governments of countries be more representative of under-represented portions of the population, such as women and minorities. So, a Western company moving into Asia will, no doubt, need to include Asian people on their board. My question to you is: to what extent do you think the involvement of minorities and women in corporate governance is critical? MR PETERSEN: It is critical, absolutely. But the thing that struck me about Johannesburg in terms of a process was the engagement of civil society acting for the NGOs. Really, they were there for the first time as well; and they showed maturity in the way they engaged in debate at a very quiet level. They just got about the business of not rattling the cage in relation to the issues they had, yet there is a certain influence that they were very strong on. They were engaged for the entire 11 days that the conference was on. I think that they really did, insofar as business was concerned, provide a leading light to understanding issues that, perhaps, business had not fully comprehended, and were therefore were able to take away with them. MR WILLIAMSON: When the comment came up at the dinner table last night about the number of number of women that were involved as our CEOs, representatives and organisers—and about how times had changed—one of my colleagues said, 'About bloody time as well.' Among the things that I enjoyed most were the sessions facilitated by Jan Ponk, the former Dutch minister for the environment, I think; these sessions included some representatives of NGOs, indigenous groups, women's groups and youth groups. Their contributions right through these sessions were significant. The other thing is that, just as surely as night follows day, those indigenous groups, those local groups and those women's groups will be involved on boards—locally, nationally, internationally, and in the regions where business is involved. QUESTION: I was going to make more of a comment than a question. I know there has been a lot of talk about the different types of reporting requirements and formats, whether on a world basis or whatever. But, there is one thing that has been very effective—I work for a mining company in Indonesia and we have been doing it for years: every time we make a payment to the government (on taxes or whatever), we publish it in the local papers and state the bank account that we sent it to. It is very effective. It costs about $10 and probably achieves about 50 per cent of what the objective was to start with. MS CASWELL: Any comments? It stands alone. I would like to ask the speakers if they would like to have a final word—especially if there was any wisdom arising out of Johannesburg for us to think about in terms of Australia in Asia. MR WILLIAMSON: There was one thing that I did not mention—the involvement of local government and local communities at the summit; I was very impressed. There was a big contingent of local government people from Australia and from all around the world. The connection of local government and local communities is significant. It set up some very strong networks which continue to shrink the globe in terms of activities like that. It was just a wonderful experience. MR PETERSEN: One observation—and it was actually commented to me about three or four days into the conference—yes, the issues in relation to poverty alleviation in Africa were incredibly important, but where was the debate and the discussion about that exact same issue in Asia? It really did hit home that, whilst it was very important and nice to be in Africa—and to understand their issues—certainly, in terms of one's back door, there were far more immediate and pressing concerns that Australia should be engaged in its own region. To that extent, I think one of the reasons for this conference actually occurring is so that we have that particular debate and involvement within this region, and take that back into our various areas—legal, business or whatever they may be—to promote the discussion further. MS CASWELL: Let us all join together in thanking the two speakers for their comments. |
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