Role
The AusNCP’s Independent Examiners are experts engaged by Treasury to handle complaints about multinational enterprises. They assess issues related to how businesses apply the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct (OECD Guidelines), including:
- facilitating communication and conciliation between parties
- making decisions on complaints
- preparing AusNCP statements that outline their findings.
Independent assessment, evaluation and decisions
An Independent Examiner provides impartial assessment, evaluation and decisions at each stage of the AusNCP complaints process, including:
- an independent Initial Assessment to determine whether to accept, transfer or reject a submitted AusNCP complaint
- AusNCP-facilitated dispute resolution between parties
- examination and a Final Statement on an enterprise’s consistency with the OECD Guidelines
- Follow Up, where applicable, on recommendations made in a previous Final Statement.
Awareness raising and support structures
Independent Examiners also help promote awareness of the AusNCP’s role and responsible business conduct standards under the OECD Guidelines, including through their own networks and events.
Independent Examiners are supported by the AusNCP Secretariat in Treasury, along with members of the AusNCP Governance and Advisory Board.
Fact sheets
AusNCP – Impartiality fact sheet
Fact sheet
Current Independent Examiners
Shiv Martin
Shiv Martin was appointed as an AusNCP Independent Examiner on 10 June 2022. She brings more than ten years’ experience in leading complex, multi-party mediations across a number of legal and regulatory contexts.
Shiv is a nationally accredited mediator, legal practitioner, certified trainer, and founder of Shiv Martin Consulting. She served for more than five years as an Assistant Information Commissioner with the Queensland Government, and also acted as its Right to Information Commissioner, contributing extensive expertise in statutory decision making. She has practised law in Queensland since 2012, with a focus on administrative law.
With over 15 years of experience in dispute resolution, Shiv routinely conducts regulatory and workplace mediations and conciliations, particularly within the justice, energy and healthcare sectors. She provides strategic advisory services and training to dispute resolution organisations across Australia and New Zealand. As a lead trainer for the Resolution Institute and the Queensland Government Department of Justice, she trains and assesses mediators and conciliators nationally.
Shiv has also previously conducted conferences and conciliations as a Conference Registrar for the former Administrative Appeals Tribunal, where she handled complex public sector disputes in tax, workers compensation, disability support and social services.
Shiv’s expertise in regulatory compliance, statutory decision making and dispute resolution system design informs her work with government agencies and regulated industries on developing trauma informed and culturally responsive approaches to managing complaints, conciliation and stakeholder issues.
John Southalan
John Southalan was appointed as an AusNCP Independent Examiner on 29 July 2019.
John is an Advanced Mediator, barrister and academic based in Western Australia, with extensive experience in responsible business conduct, dispute resolution and land resources issues.
He has over 20 years’ experience in advising and representing parties in disputes involving land and resource use, including work with Indigenous groups, companies, pastoralists, civil society organisations and governments.
John has advised governments in Australia and internationally on mining law. For over eight years, he worked with the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation in relation to Indigenous land rights.
John has taught and researched about the resources sector and its regulation at universities in Australia and overseas. He is a current affiliate of the Universities of Dundee, Western Australia, Murdoch and Curtin.
John is also a panel member of the Wholesale Energy Market Dispute Resolution Adviser and serves on the mediators panel under the Northern Territory Petroleum Regulations. In addition, he is a member of the Resolution Institute and is accredited under its Online Dispute Resolution Certification Programme.