69.
corporation from certain conduct which was intended and likely to cause substantial loss or damage to its business. Section 45D in its application to trading corporations was held to be a valid law with respect to corporations. Certain other applications of the provisions were held invalid.
163 Gibbs CJ pointed out[1] that, like the aliens power (s 51(xix)), the corporations power is conferred "by reference to persons". He continued[2]:
"However, having regard to the federal nature of the Constitution, it is difficult to suppose that the powers conferred by pars. (xix) and (xx) were intended to extend to the enactment of a complete code of laws, on all subjects, applicable to the persons named in those paragraphs. … [I]n the case of the corporations described in s. 51(xx), extraordinary consequences would result if the Parliament had power to make any kind of law on any subject affecting such corporations. … Other difficulties in relation to s. 51(xx) are caused by the need to construe the Constitution as a whole, and thus to reconcile par. (xx) with other parts of s. 51".
Although Gibbs CJ concluded[3] that it was both unnecessary and undesirable to attempt to define the outer limits of s 51(xx), he did say[4] that:
"The words of par. (xx) suggest that the nature of the corporation to which the laws relate must be significant as an element in the nature or character of the laws, if they are to be valid … In other words, in the case of trading and financial corporations, laws which relate to their trading and financial activities will be within the power."
As to foreign corporations, he added[5] that "the fact that the corporation is a foreign corporation should be significant in the way in which the law relates to it".
