Mudginberri dispute

The Mudginberri abattoir was the focus of a major industrial relations dispute from 1983 to 1985 in Australia's Northern Territory which was notable for being the first successful use of legal sanctions against a union since the gaoling of Victorian Tramways union leader Clarrie O'Shea in 1969. The successful prosecution of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union (AMIEU) under section 45D of the Trade Practices Act (Secondary boycott provisions) was seen by the National Farmers Federation and the developing New Right in and outside the Liberal Party of Australia as a breakthrough in a campaign to break the power of the unions and introduce contract employment.

The Mudginberri station is some 250 km east of Darwin along the Arnhem Highway in the Northern Territory of Australia. The abattoir was built in the early 1970s to take advantage of the large numbers of feral buffalo in the area.

The country itself is mainly low-lying black soil country between the East Alligator and South Alligator Rivers with the Arnhem Land escarpment to the east. The station's abattoir is about 15 kilometres from Jabiru to the south and much the same distance from the Ranger Uranium Mine to the north.