Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration

The Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration was an Australian court that existed from 1904 to 1956. It had jurisdiction to arbitrate interstate industrial disputes. It had the unusual distinction of effectively being abolished by the High Court of Australia, as a result of the Boilermakers' case.

The Court was created in 1904 by the Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904, an Act of the Parliament of Australia. Its functions were the hearing and the arbitration of industrial disputes, and to make awards. It also had the judicial functions of interpreting and enforcing awards and hearing other criminal and civil cases relating to industrial relations law. The Court's first President was High Court Justice Richard O'Connor.

The Court was initially less important than the various State industrial conciliation commissions, which had jurisdiction over all disputes which occurred within their respective states. The Court's workload was so low that it made only six awards in the first five years of its existence. One of these early awards was the famous Harvester Judgment, delivered by H.B. Higgins, which first introduced the concept of the living wage (also known as a basic wage). Another of the Court's early acts was the setting of the standard working week at 48 hours.

The Court was reformed in 1926 following amendments to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. The changes included replacing the President with a Chief Judge alongside other judges, and ensuring all cases involving the basic or living wage would be heard by a full bench of the Court. The changes also allowed for the appointment of Conciliation Commissioners, with a role similar to mediators. The Court was changed again in 1947 to increase the role of the Commissioners, leaving the judges to conduct the judicial work, and a select few matters of arbitration including the basic wage and the minimum wage for women.

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