The standard could be further strengthened by providing additional details and requirements around community participation and engagement, conflicts of interest, and whistleblowing protections.
Business Integrity
It’s important for the mining approvals processes across Australia to have mechanisms in place to prevent corruption from occurring and ensure that the the sector is productive and trusted.
Social licence to operate is regarded as the top business risk. A company’s ability to demonstrate business integrity is increasingly essential for the success of its projects.
Transparency International’s M4SD Programme broadly endorses the findings and recommendations in the Discussion Paper. In our comments, we elaborate on some areas we consider to be especially important and identify further opportunities to strengthen anticorruption efforts.
Globally, the extractive sector can be a source of livelihood for local people, supports regional development, and helps to boost national economies. However, the sector does have serious institutional and behavioural weaknesses. It is the poorest people, living in the mining areas, who are particularly vulnerable when the mining sector and their governments fail them.
What does the West African nation of Liberia have in common with Australia, the land down under? Both are rich in mineral resources, for one. And in both countries, government decisions to approve exploration and mining projects are vulnerable to corruption.
This summary of the larger report provides a useful overview of the corruption vulnerabilities in the mining approvals process, and provides a roadmap for better policy and practice in Australia.
This report documents the existing system of checks and balances that require transparency and accountability in the exploration license, and mining lease, approvals regime in Australia.
Through our research , we found that the NAIF processes for investment decision-making lack transparency, accountability and integrity. These weaknesses undermine public scrutiny of its decisions, give rise to conflicts of interests, and could result in companies with a history of noncompliance, criminal or corrupt behaviour gaining access to public funds.