Harvester Judgment
| Harvester Judgment | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Court | Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration |
| Full case name | Ex Parte H.V. McKay |
| Decided | 8 November 1907 |
| Citation(s) | (1907) 2 CAR 1 |
| Transcript(s) |
Mon 7 October 1907 Tue 8 October 1907 Wed 9 October 1907 Thu 10 October 1907 Fri 11 October 1907 Mon 14 October 1907 Tue 15 October 1907 Wed 16 October 1907 Thu 17 October 1907 Fri 18 October 1907 Mon 21 October 1907 Tue 22 October 1907 Wed 23 October 1907 Thu 24 October 1907 Fri 25 October 1907 Mon 28 October 1907 Tue 29 October 1907 Wed 30 October 1907 Thu 31 October 1907 Fri 1 November 1907 |
| Case history | |
| Subsequent action(s) | R v Barger [1908] HCA 43, (1908) 6 CLR 41 |
| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting | Higgins J |
Ex parte H.V. McKay, well known as the Harvester case, is a landmark Australian labour law decision of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration by H.B. Higgins that "fair and reasonable" wages for an unskilled male worker required a living wage that was sufficient for "a human being in a civilised community" to support a wife and three children in "frugal comfort", while a skilled worker should receive an additional margin for their skills, regardless of the employer's capacity to pay. While the High Court subsequently held that the legislation that gave rise to the decision was invalid, it was the basis for the minimum wage system that extended to half of the Australian workforce in less than 20 years. The decision was credited as the foundation for the national minimum wage included in the Fair Work Act 2009. As well as national ramifications, the decision was of international significance.
In 1906 the second Deakin government was in power, with support from the Labor party. Prime Minister Deakin's ‘New Protection’ policy was to provide tariff protection to employers in exchange for ‘fair and reasonable’ wages for employees. In implementing this policy, the Commonwealth government introduced two bills, that would become the Customs Tariff Act 1906, and the Excise Tariff Act 1906, Higgins was a member of the Australian Parliament and spoke in support of the bills that imposed custom and excise duties that were payable on certain agricultural machinery, including stripper harvesters. The Excise Tariff Act 1906 contained a proviso that the excise would not be payable if the manufacturer paid "fair and reasonable" wages as follows:
Provided that this Act shall not apply to goods manufactured by any person in any part of the Commonwealth under conditions as to remuneration of labour which—
H. B. Higgins had been a member of the Parliament of Victoria and in 1896 supported the trial introduction of a minimum wage. He successfully argued at the 1897-1898 conventions that the constitution should contain a guarantee of religious freedom, and also a provision giving the federal government the power to make laws relating to the conciliation and arbitration of industrial disputes. The industrial disputes proposal was initially unsuccessful, however Higgins was undeterred and succeeded in 1898. Despite these successes, Higgins J had opposed the draft constitution produced by the convention as too conservative, and campaigned unsuccessfully to have it defeated at the 1899 Australian constitutional referendum.
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