"Respect the rights of shareholders and facilitate the effective exercise of those rights"Recommendation 6.1: Design and disclose a communications strategy to promote effective communication with shareholders and encourage effective participation at general meetings.The Company has in place a communications policy, which reflects the Company's commitment to dealing fairly, transparently and promptly with shareholders, encouraging and facilitating active participation at shareholder meetings and dealing promptly with their enquiries. The policy focuses on the disclosure of information.
The key aspects of the policy are:
- diligent compliance with the Company's continuous disclosure and trading policies to keep shareholders informed of all relevant information;
- prompt, transparent compliance with statutory reporting and meeting obligations, including sending reports and notices to shareholders by email;
- effective use of the Company's website, electronic communication and its share registry to keep shareholders up to date and to deal with their enquiries, including the posting of Company announcements, company reports, notices of meeting and explanatory statements on the Company's website; and
- compliance with applicable privacy requirements.
The communications policy was adopted in June 2005 and is to be reviewed annually.
Recommendation 6.2: Request the external auditor to attend the annual general meeting and be available to answer shareholder questions about the conduct of the audit and the preparation and content of the auditor's report.The Company's external auditor attends the Company's annual general meeting, and other meetings where it is appropriate to do so.