Page 2691 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Jennifer Hill, in her article entitled, “What reward Have Ye? Disclosure of Director and Executive Remuneration in Australia”, published in the Company and Securities Law Journal, volume 14 (1996), concludes:
Adequate disclosure is widely recognised as the linchpin in effective regulation of director and executive remuneration and good corporate governance practices.
David Ablen, in his article, “Remunerating Fairly and Responsibly—the Principle of Good Corporate Governance and Best Practice Recommendations of the ASX Corporate Governance Council”, published in the Sydney Law Review, volume 25(4) 2003, writes:
The Council’s philosophy of full disclosure has operated to increase the level of transparency in the remuneration process … But while privacy arguments may be raised against the disclosure of all elements of directors’ and executives’ remuneration, for example, public considerations far outweigh the privacy considerations. Among these public considerations, the most important is the prevention of self-dealing and conflict of interest. Nonetheless, apart from allowing shareholders to monitor their behaviour, the disclosure of directors’ and executives’ remuneration, including its individual components, involves information that shareholders have a legitimate interest in knowing.
The one issue and only matter that can be raised to rebut disclosure that should be briefly engaged with is the right to privacy. Sections 12 and 28 of the Human Rights Act set out, inter alia, that everyone has the right not to have his or her privacy interfered with unlawfully or arbitrarily and that this right may be subject only to reasonable limits set by territory laws that can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. This issue was also raised by the scrutiny of bills committee, so it is important to put the Greens’ view on it.
Whilst the issue is discussed in the explanatory statement, the exact reasons for the conclusion are not. The Greens do agree with the conclusion that in this case the limitations on the right to privacy that are being imposed are proportionate, reasonable, and demonstrably justifiable and that this measure does not by any means involve an arbitrary intrusion on a person’s right to privacy contrary to either the commonwealth Privacy Act or the Human Rights Act.
As I said, it is in the public interest for two reasons. The first is that there is undoubtedly a general public interest in knowing how much public money is spent and that this public interest extends to all situations where it cannot be shown that there is a greater public interest in preventing the disclosure. The second and more specific public interest is in ensuring that, as the beneficiaries of the trust in which the shares in these companies are held by their elected representatives, the community’s rights and interests in the corporations are properly managed. Included in these rights and interests is the disclosure of remuneration paid to those who run these corporations, for the reasons I have already set out.
We all have a stake, not only in the financial returns which facilitate the provision of government services, but, particularly in the case of Actew, in the actual outputs—primarily the water that we all rely on.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video