the role of school in bullying

The article showed that a father withdrew his two sons from a school because he thought that the school failed to fullfill the duty of care in bullying. Bullying is a problem in almost every school and many children may have to face more than one bullies. So what's the role of school in bullying? The common law regulates a duty of care on schools to prevent students from foreseeable risks of injury and it's part of school's responsibility to build a safe environment for students. Therefore schools should take every complaint of bullying seriously and take all possibilities to get students from potential injuries.------Yanlin Hu

Chinalco, Rio deal collapses

The collapse of the biggest investment deal in both Australian and Chinese corporate history occurred mid last year, with Rio Tinto shareholders withdrawing its support for a $US19.5 billion investment from Chinalco (a Chinese state-owned entity).

The failure of the bid was due to shareholders believing that it would have given Chinalco too much control over Rio, including significant influence over the pricing of resource commodities and the power to nominate board members.

The close of negotiations spared the Financial Investment Review Board the task in determining whether or not to block the deal on national interest grounds, as well as saving the government a political annoyance in its diplomacy with China.

See, http://www.smh.com.au/business/chinalco-rio-deal-collapses-20090605-bxdc.html.

Black listed tax havens face sanctions

The following article states that Tax havens that refuse to sign anti-secrecy agreements face expensive sanctions under an unprecedented global effort to catch illegal tax evaders.

Therefore, it could be argued that the OECD member countries are unfairly targeting tax havens rather than the tax payers who use them.

The following article outlines a draft form of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) released by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

This would push Australia to come into line with other countries who are placing the onus on internet service providers to crack down on piracy.

Should it really be the responsibility of internet service providers to supervise internet piracy and what users are doing?

The Role of the Coroner is Changing

Historically, the role of the coroner in modern society is changing from the traditional determination of cause of death to also mkaing recommendations that, if implemented, could prevent similar deaths occuring in the future. An example can be seen in this news story, which highlights how a modern coroner goes about assessing cause of death and making recommendations, and is also a good example of the organisation who is affected by the coroner's recommendations actually taking notice of and implementing the coroner's recommendations.

Australia seen as an 'easy' country to get asylum in

Potential Sri Lanka asylum seekers view Australia as an 'easy' country to get asylum in. The Australian reports that successful asylum seekers in Australia spread the word to their family members how the Australian system is 'soft' and allows people to get in without much effort. Because of this leniency, potential asylum seekers target Australia. This is definitely a call to make our asylum laws stricter, which would result in a decline in the asylum seekers attempting access to Australia.

See here

Increased co-ordination of people smuggling regulation

As can be seen in the news article that can be found here, an increased synchronization of Governmental authorities in the management of people smuggling. The criminalization of the activity within Indonesia, in combination with organization of the respective authorities in order to tackle the crime, is at the forefront of people smuggling developments...

Proposed Bill of Rights abandoned

The article 'Barnett welcomes Labor's humiliating backdown on Bill of Rights' is quite interesting to my honors topic where I focus the general public's opinion regarding whether or not Australia needs one.

The article can be found here:

Some of the comments made in this article is that a Bill of Rights would take the power away from the Parliament and that “the best way to protect rights is through specific legislation tailored to address areas of concern and overseen by our Parliament.” I would have to disagree as a legislation can quite easily be amended or repealed, for example.

Australia is quite behind other countries such as the UK, USA and NZ that all have some sort of Bill of Rights. Therefore, it does raise the question, if it is such a bad idea why have other countries adopted this idea and kept the Bill of Rights for quite some time.

Further in the article is states that the proposed Bill of Rights never had the support of the Australian community to begin with. My research so far has indicated that most Australian believe their rights are already protected, and that we already have some form of Bill of Rights. I am therefore not surprised to read this, why would we need one if we already had one?

Regulator outlines corporate governance plans

Finally the financial services providores will be put under tougher regulations. I would want to see the investor interests put above the interests of the financial services providores.

See Here

CSR Ltd demerger

'Judge tears up CSR spin-off' is an article from the Sydney Morning Herald. It is about the Federal Court decision (Re CSR Ltd) to refuse to convene a shareholder meeting to approve a plan to demerge CSR Ltd into two companies. The demerger may have affected the capital available to meet asbestos victim claims. Some in the media believe that the decision to reject the demerger was unfairly influenced by the outcome of the James Hardie case.

The CSR case provides an interesting example of when public policy may influence corporate law.

Article in SMH
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