"Australia: Corporate Code of Conduct Bill, 2000" [2005] ELECD 235; in Tully, Stephen (ed), "International Documents on Corporate Responsibility" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2005)

Book Title: International Documents on Corporate Responsibility

Editor(s): Tully, Stephen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781843768197

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: Australia: Corporate Code of Conduct Bill, 2000

Number of pages: 8

Extract:

12. Australia: Corporate Code of Conduct Bill,
2000

Commentary: This private member's bill arose in response to the Baia Mare spill
by an Australian company in Papua New Guinea. Some 43 organisations lodged
submissions with the Australian Parliamentary Joint Statutory Committee on
Corporations and Securities. Although `drafted with the best of intentions', the
Committee considered this Bill to be `impracticable and unwarranted' and recom-
mended abandoning such an `unnecessary and unworkable' initiative: `Report of the
Corporate Code of Conduct Bill 2000', Canberra, 2001: para 4.5. Several members
of that Committee concluded that `its time has not yet come': Comments by Labour
Members on the Corporate Code of Conduct Bill, 2000. Others concluded that
`while the current Bill needs amendment, there is a demonstrated need for it':
Australian Democrats, `Minority Report on the Corporate Code of Conduct Bill
2000': para 89. The non-adoption of this Code mirrors the fate of the Corporate
Code of Conduct Bill 2000 (US) brought before the US House of Representatives by
Congresswoman McKinney. This draft contemplated preferential government
procurement, withdrawing financial assistance and prospective corporate liability
within US courts.



Part 1 Preliminary

3. Objects of Act
1. The objects of this Act are:

(a) to impose environmental, employment, health and safety and human rights stan-
dards on the conduct of Australian corporations or related corporations which
employ more than 100 persons in a foreign country; and
(b) to require such corporations to report on their compliance with the standards
imposed by this Act; ...