Major reforms
Harvester Judgement
08 November 1907
A minimum wage for Australian workers is established.
The Harvester Judgement introduced the idea of a 'living' or 'minimum' wage for all white, male workers. It was part of a belief that all Australians should share the nation’s wealth and gave more power to workers in pay negotiations with employers.
In 1906 the Australian Parliament made a law that required employers to pay a tax on the products they sold unless they paid a ‘fair and reasonable wage’ to their workers. In 1907, Hugh Victor McKay of the Sunshine Harvester Company applied to the Conciliation and Arbitration Court to stop paying this tax because he believed he paid his workers a fair wage. The Court had to consider what a fair and reasonable wage was. Justice Higgins decided 7 shillings a day (£2-2 shillings per week) for an unskilled man was a 'fair and reasonable' wage to keep him, his wife and 3 children in 'frugal comfort'.
The Sunshine Harvester Company did not pay this wage and so had to keep paying the tax. The company successfully appealed to the High Court of Australia but the idea of a 'minimum wage' was popular and soon applied to most male workers.
Daily Telegraph, 13 November, 1907
State Library of Victoria
Daily Telegraph, 13 November, 1907
State Library of Victoria
Description
This article was published in the Daily Telegraph on Wednesday 13 November 1907. The image shows the first paragraphs of a large article titled "The new protection." It describes the judgement by Justice Higgins, President of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration in the case which came to be known as the Harvester Judgement.