Making a presentation on the role of trade unions in China when it comes to sustainable development and climate change, business change and transformation

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Speech to the All-China Federation of Trade Unions
(ACFTU): on “sustainable economic development, low
carbon economy and the role of Australian trade unions in
these areas.” Matthew Tukaki: Speaker Notes
The University of Sydney, 9th of August 2012
Matthew Tukaki, Australian Representative, the United Nations Global Compact, CEO and Chairman of the
Sustain Group
Matthew Tukaki: Executive Biography
Matthew Tukaki is Australia’s Representative to the United Nations Global Compact where he
represents business and industry when it comes to Human Rights, Anti-Corruption, the Environment
and Labour. Matthew also holds a number of other roles in the Australian private and public sector
as the CEO and Chairman of the Sustain Group, Member of the Board of Australia’s Indigenous
Chamber of Commerce, Member of the Board of one of Australia’s Peak Mental Health Bodies,
Suicide Prevention Australia, a member of Deakin Universities Centre for Sustainable and
Responsible Organisations Advisory board and Chairman of the Living Earth Initiative, a project that
seeks to promote environmental science and backyard ecology amongst students and young people.
Matthew is formerly the Regional Head of Drake International where he was responsible for the
organisations operations. Drake is one of the world’s largest employment and Human Resources
Corporation. Matthew is considered to be a leading expert in the field of employment and is
recognised as a foremost expert in the fields of the business response to climate change and the
linkages between social and economic development. Within the UN family Matthew has been
instrumental in the development of the UNGC in our region, supporting the opening of an office in
Burma and leading Australia’s business delegation to the recent Rio+20 United Nations Conference
on Sustainable Development where he chaired several sessions focussed on the business response
to climate change, business and human rights, business and women’s empowerment. Matthew is
the former Chairman of the Australian Government Chief Information Officers Council, the
Government Policy Advisory Panel and the Workwise Group.
Matthew has previously led the operational reviews of some of Australia’s largest Government
agencies and departments such as the Joint House Department of the Parliament of Australia and
the Australian Communications Authority. He is equally passionate about Government to
Government and Business to Business relationships with China, has visited China on many occasions
and believes that China has a significant role to play at the global level when it comes to economic
leadership.

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Speech:
Slide One: Opening Slide / Front Cover
Good afternoon and welcome to Australia. Thank you for that warm introduction. Before I start I
would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land, the Indigenous people of Australia
and in particular the Gadigal people. I pay my respects to the ancestors both past and present. The
Aboriginal people of Australia are the oldest continuous population in the world having occupied this
continent for more than 40,000 years. It is a tradition amongst senior business executives and
government leaders that when we open a conference or make a speech that we acknowledge the
important role Aboriginal people have played and continue to play – as I point out always has been
and always will be Aboriginal Land.
Today I am going to talk with you about an Australian perspective when it comes to sustainable
economic development, the low carbon economy and what I see as the role of Australian Trade
Unions to be in this area.
Slide Two: The world is changing
25 years ago, the former Prime Minister of Norway, Gro Brundtland, authored a report known as the
Brundtland Report – at the time it was world leading and proposed that social, economic and
environmental development were linked and you could not achieve one without the other. For many
years since Government, business and industry have grappled with each in isolation. Our approach
to social development has not always led to economic outcomes, our approach to economic
development does not necessarily lead to social outcomes and when it comes to the environment
we aim for the bigger targets without understanding quite clearly how we need to achieve them. For
example, in order to afford the myriad of climate change initiatives and targets that are being
proposed we need to ensure that we are able to finance them and that the programmes being
funded will lead to the very outcomes being proposed. On the social side we need to ensure that the
programmes being invested into actually do change lives and make a difference – that social
development leads to economic development – where jobs are created, education provided and
skills developed. Today, more than 25 years after the Brundtland report the United Nations
Sustainable Development Conference held in Rio came to that conclusion. In order to achieve the
things we must, we need to ensure we link social, economic and environmental development
together.
Slide Three: The role of business and industry

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The role business plays is equally as important as that of a nation state for one very simple, yet
fundamental reason, when a business crosses a countries border we call it investment and more and
more businesses are crossing borders every single day as our world grows smaller and our business
footprint grows larger. Many of you will begin to hear the words “social license to operate” – for
context, if a business is opening a site or operation in a developed country, a social license to
operate means that the business should be investing into different programs and initiatives that lead
to social and economic development – the creation of jobs in the local area or community, investing
in health and education programmes. Some of Australia’s largest corporations such as BHP and Rio
Tinto are doing exactly this. In addition to the social license to operate more and more Australia’s
businesses are seeing this not as sustainability or corporate social responsibility, more so we are
defining it through a series of social investments. If we have $1 million budgeted for a community
based education program then let’s ensure that the return is x number of children or community
members being educated that then lead to employment on our site. So, the difference between
what business used to do and what we do now has changed – we now measure what we do and we
make our social investments count as much as possible.
One great example is a company called Asia Pulp and Paper who, over the years, have invested
significantly in programs and initiatives that extend well past just social and economic development;
they have also linked in initiatives such as environmental protection and bio-diversity. One example
is the locking up of more than 700,000 hectares of rainforest into what is now known as the Giam
Siek Biosphere – a remarkable achievement.
Slide Four: building bridges with Government
Another aspect of the journey business is taking is recognising that in order to be effective we must
partner with Government to achieve our joint national and economic interests. Here in Australia our
overseas aid and development agency, AusAid, will soon release their private sector development
strategy. Business welcomes this as it sets the scene for how we can partner around the delivery of
different initiatives and the sharing of information and knowledge about operating environments of
countries where we both have a presence – in my view if we were to look at the more than $10
billion in Aid that the Government delivers every single year, match that with the social investment
activities that business undertakes, then our ability to create and develop better outcomes would be
much more fundamental.
Slide Five: back at home – climate change being the challenge
All of that to one side; we need to focus on the more complex challenge that faces each of us and all
of us – that of climate change. I would argue that business and industry have an equal role to play
alongside Government and the community. Yes Governments can regulate, as they have done in

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Australia through the carbon price, but business we lead the way when it comes to innovation. The
transition into a low carbon economy is not just a necessary one; it needs to be managed correctly
and in order to do so we must first face up to one of the biggest challenges of all – population. For
perspective, our global population will grow to be 9 Billion by 2040 and the number of middle class
consumers will also grow by about 3 Billion. By 2030 we will need 50% more food, 45% more energy
and 30% more water. To be more blunt, as the middle class grows the product consumption demand
will also grow – for example, imagine that 20 million more people in Indonesia move into the middle
class over the next 15 years and each one of them buys an LCD television, a fridge, a washing
machine and a laptop computer. That’s four appliances for each of those 20 million people – 80
million new appliances connected to the electricity grid – or in India a rise in the middle class of just
100 million people which could add more than 100 million new cars to the roads. While no-one
should be stopped from aspiring to be wealthier or be an active participant in the economy, we must
also be realists – in order to address climate change and sustainable economic development we
must first address the challenges that will come with significant population growth. We must
balance that with the right of a developing country to develop, of the need ourselves to transition
into lower carbon economies, give business and industry the ability to adapt and to innovate.
Slide Six: The scale of the investment required
“The scale of investment, innovation, technological development and employment creation required
for sustainable development and poverty eradication is beyond the range of the public sector.” This
sets the scene for arguing that “we need to use the power of the economy to forge inclusive and
sustainable growth and create value beyond narrow concepts of wealth. Markets and
entrepreneurship will be a prime driver of decision making and economic change.” Here in Australia
while the price on carbon has been unpopular I would argue it is not because it is bad policy it was
just badly communicated and developed at a time when our Government needed to negotiate with
the Greens to remain in power. The prime motivator of carbon pricing in Australia is the
fundamental need to transition our own economy to that of a low carbon one. While it may not be
apparent today or indeed over the next twelve months – the fact is we have already set the scene
for changes in behaviour, entrepreneurship will take hold and innovation will occur. The investment
Australia is making, business, government and community is in the billions – but as we move down
the path of these next few years that investment will pay off. Our energy sector will transition and
transform, business will create and develop new technologies from software to product around
energy efficiency and I fully expect that professional services will become a significant export
industry. In a similar way to how our country is responding, China is also responding. China is making
investments that quite frankly are much larger and more substantial. Our challenge is to be as
competitive or better than our Chinese counterparts. It’s also not just big business playing the role of

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innovator. Small businesses is playing its part – Netbalance and Banarra in the professional services
fields, Sebel Furniture in the Manufacturing sector – I could name many.
Slide Seven: The role of unions
I believe that our Trade Unions have an enormous role to play when it comes to our economy wide
transition into a low carbon economy – but I also suggest that any participant in the employment
and jobs market has a role to play. Here in Australia two of the other largest employment market
participants are the recruitment industry and what we call Job Services Australia. The recruitment
sector works with business, industry and government for the placement of people into work, those
who are moving from one job to another – or in reverse, organisations who are looking for talent or
skills. Job Services Australia works with the unemployed to transition them back into work. All
through of these employment market participants have an equal role to play alongside business and
government and academic institutions. Because, in order to achieve the very things we must we it
comes to climate change and sustainable economic development – we need the skills and expertise.
We need to teach and educate, build new skills and transition out of date skills into being more
relevant for the economy of tomorrow. We need to accept that as some of our older industries
being to fall by the wayside and as new industries evolve from them or rise – we need the skills and
expertise to man our shops and factories, our power stations and farms, our schools and institutions,
our corporations and government departments. The success or failure of any low carbon economy is
investing in skills and education as the primary foundation. I personally believe in strong and
effective trade unions and while some would argue that trade unions in Australia have lost their
relevance through a drop in membership – I would argue in reverse. Just as business is moving down
the path of fostering innovation and entrepreneurship – so to can our union movement.
Slide Eight: the role of monitor
I also see a role for unions at the regional level to monitor and research the ever increasing
challenges around both skilled and unskilled migration. By that I mean the movement of tens of
millions of people around the regions of Asia and the Middle East. Stories abound of the treatment
of Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian, Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers – of how passports are
taken away from people in the construction industry in the middle east otherwise they won’t get the
job, held onto by the employer, the wages are never paid, accommodation is twenty people to a
room and the employer closes down – only to strand that foreign national in a foreign land. With no
way home, no money and no support. Of the treatment of Indonesian and Filipino workers in the
middle east, abused and underpaid. Of Chinese workers being underpaid in foreign fishing fleets and
construction sites. The use of child labour and the treatment of labour by foreign companies with
manufacturing operations or suppliers in China. The example I give is a Taiwanese company making

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American branded products in manufacturing plants in china where there are high instances of
suicide amongst the young working population. Quite frankly, I don’t care what colour your skin or
where you come from, the shape of your eyes, the language you speak, your religion or orientation –
a human being is a human being and the role of unions is important to ensure that our people, your
people are not taken advantage of. On that point I reference a wise man who said “Never impose on
others what you would not choose for yourself.” That wise man was the Chinese philosopher,
confucious.
Slide Nine: the links
Finally, sustainable economic development and the low carbon economy, the role of Unions and
business, government and the community are all linked. Social, Economic and Environmental
development need to be seen through those links because we cannot achieve one without the
other. I wanted to wish you all the best for your stay in Australia and look forward to future
exchanges with you all.