Opening Australia’s extractive data for development

Tracking Australian mining, oil and gas companies around the world is challenging. Australia has one of the largest global footprints of extractives companies operating abroad. Research by Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Australia and ESG research house CAER in September 2016 found that the 22 Extractives Industries Companies on the ASX 200 had a presence in almost 50 countries. Trying to trace the payments between these companies and the governments of the countries in which they operate is difficult. But it could be done, and reasonably simply, if Australia introduced a mandatory disclosure reporting requirement that legally required ASX listed extractives companies to make public their payments to government in every country in which they operate…