Executive remuneration continues to provoke global debate

Executive remuneration is the biggest shareholder issue "by a country mile", it has been suggested.

According to the Australian, shareholders in the southern hemisphere country have consistently put executives under pressure in annual meetings over what they see as excessive pay, and this is being replicated across the globe.

As an illustration of this, the newspaper cites a recent online poll in the Economist, which started a debate on the motion: "This house believes that on the whole, senior executives are worth what they are paid."

More than 80 per cent of those who voted in the survey went against the suggestion, which leaves the difficult question of whether shareholders should be allowed to have more influence in pay decisions.

In Australia, the Productivity Commission has proposed forcing the entire board of a company to stand for re-election if their pay proposals are voted against by 25 per cent of shareholders two years in a row.

While this scheme is likely to have been revised by the time the Productivity Commission's final report is issued in December, it is expected to form the basis of the Australian solution to the problem.

Meanwhile, in the US, President Barack Obama has backed plans which would see executives of companies bailed out by the public sector in the wake of the financial crisis have their pay curbed.