Consistent with our Values, respecting human rights is a fundamental part of the way we do business – shaping the way we embrace, support and treat our people, customers and communities.
As well as being a signatory to the UN Global Compact, we’ve committed to uphold a number of international commitments which incorporate human rights requirements. These include:
Our policies, practices and due diligence processes emphasise the requirement for all employees to respect human rights, and to take care to avoid being complicit in human rights abuses.
NAB Group’s Human Rights Policy sets out requirements for human rights to be incorporated into related policies, processes, frameworks and action plans that apply across National Australia Bank Limited (NAB) and its controlled entities (Group). Our Human Rights Policy is approved by our Board. Policy requirements related to land rights are now included within this Policy.
These activities help us to do business in a way that respects the rights and dignity of people, and avoids complicity in human rights abuse.
We have a number of grievance mechanisms to address different sources of grievance or concern. The different mechanisms are embedded in our existing People, Customer, Corporate Affairs and Whistleblower processes. Given this approach, we do not have a standalone human rights grievance process.
Where grievances or concerns are raised, we investigate and seek to address them as appropriate. As necessary for investigation or resolution of a grievance we may engage with our people, customers and other stakeholders. From time to time we may seek expertise from third parties to assist with these processes.
Examples of different grievance mechanisms include employee concern processes, Resolve teams, our independent customer advocate and our FairCall whistleblower service.
If we are aware of human rights issues related to our customers’ or suppliers' operations, we take steps to understand the issue and take appropriate action. This may arise due to external parties raising these issues, or our own due diligence. Our investigation and action may involve referring the matter to the appropriate authorities (for example, in the case of allegations of modern slavery), or engaging with our customer or supplier about the issues and what can be done to address the concerns.
Should cases involve litigation, we will conduct ourselves in accordance with our Model Litigant Policy.
Below are additional resources and reports where you can learn more about the actions we have taken during the year and how we manage human rights:
As part of the 2020 Human Rights Policy update, policy requirements in relation to land rights are now included in the Human Rights Policy. You can read more about actions we have taken in the past in relation to Improper Land Aquisition in the following documents:
NAB Group recognises that human rights concerns can arise not only in its own operations, but also via interactions with external parties – in particular, business relationships, customer interactions, financing and investments, supply chain management and the communities served. Therefore, the Group Human Rights policy is implemented through a range of internal policies, processes, frameworks and practices covering areas such as discrimination, accessibility, harassment, workplace bullying, occupational health and safety, modern slavery, whistleblower protection, privacy, financial resilience, our Reconciliation Action Plan and provision of responsible products and services, as well as within our credit, investment and supply chain related policies and requirements. Refer to the following for more information on some of these areas:
Managing our business in a responsible way is key to our vision of becoming Australia's leading bank, trusted by customers for exceptional service.
Our Annual Reporting suite provides an overview of our corporate responsibility strategy and performance.
Maintaining an open and constructive dialogue with stakeholders is essential for business. It's how we understand community expectations, identify issues and discover opportunities to improve.
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