PWYP Australia was launched in June 2011. The coalition is made up of a wide range of organisations – human rights, aid, faith-based, anti-corruption, union and environmental among others – that all see revenue transparency as central to their objectives.
PWYP Australia has been working with civil society, government and industry to fully implement the EITI following the Australian government’s commitment to the EITI.. Several members of PWYP Australia represented civil society on the EITI pilot’s multi-stakeholder group. The implementation of the EITI in Australia will improve trust and accountability in the country’s mining and oil and gas sectors and help establish the EITI as the global standard for transparency in the extractive industries.
The coalition is also working with the Australian Government to see companies listed or based in Australia publish what they pay governments in the countries in which they operate, in line with similar legislation that was introduced in the United States and European Union. Following the announcement from Canada that it will introduce similar laws, Australia is now the last major developed country market that hasn’t yet committed to such transparency rules.
PWYP Australia recently published Abundant Resources, Absent Data through the PWYP Data Extractors programme. It is a report which demonstrates how important open data is to increasing transparency in the extractives sector, building evidence based policy, and ensuring citizens and governments around the world are benefiting from the extraction of their natural resources.
