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Article from Computershare USA

Australian listed companies have a lower level of shareholders participation voting at their shareholder meetings than their counterparts in the US and UK. Shareholder voting statistics in Australia indicate that an average 30–35% of issued capital is voted for the major Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) listed companies. This compares to around 50% in the UK and 80% in the US.

Actually Australian Computershare research has confirmed the participation is as low as 4% due to our polling voting system.
Oddly, the business community view the USA working conditions as the ideal model that should be introduced here. Yet argue tooth and nail not to introduce their corporate voting methodology.

Is it because they are better corporate citizens or that overseas fund managers are more active? In fact, it is largely due to differing proxy voting quorum requirements and the manner in which shares are registered for Australian companies.
The US regime requires a shareholder resolution to be passed by 50% of members, and it is compulsory for US pension funds, under Department of Labor regulations, to vote their proxies. The US therefore enjoys a statistical advantage over Australia when comparing proxy voting statistics.
A key reason behind the lower levels of voting at Australian shareholder meetings relates to the level of custodian shareholdings in Australian share registers. Aggregating the top 10 registered shareholders across the S&P/ASX 50 reveals that approximately 38% of the issued capital of the top 50 ASX listed companies, representing some $205 billion of equity, is held by these 10 members, many of which are custodians, nominees or trustees holding for various beneficial owners.

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