In the early 1900s, as the economy slowly recovered from the depression, two
of the major issues facing the new Commonwealth were how to minimize
class conflict and maintain Australia as a high-wage economy. The result was
the Deakinite Settlement, based on the exclusion of non-European labour,
high tariffs, and a conciliation and arbitration system with a high minimum
wage. The economic costs of the Deakinite Settlement were not ignored in
thefirst half of the twentieth century. They were clearly pointed out in the
‘Brigden Report’of 1929, in Edward Shann’s eloquent and despairingEconomic
History of Australia(Shann 1930), and by the various farmers’organizations. In
spite of this, a solid majority of the Australian electorate and both major
political parties remained firmly wedded to Deakin’s principles until the
1960s. Significantly, in the 1930s when the Wheat Growers Union was cam-
paigning forfixed prices for wheat, they based their claims on the Harvester
decision, arguing that‘Wheatgrowers, in common with the wage earners,
have a right to a normal standard of living equal to the normal needs of a
human being living in a civilised community. In common with manufactur-
ers, they have a right to their costs of production, plus a reasonable margin of
profit’(‘Fixing Wheat Prices by Arbitration’1935).
Even after the White Australia Policy was abandoned in the 1960s and
1970s and tariff protection for industry dismantled in the 1970s and 1980s,
the concept of a legal living minimum wage, set independently of the laws of
supply and demand, has remained a strong feature of Australian public policy.
Under the Keating government’s Industrial Relations Reform Act 1993, a
‘safety net’was mandated in terms reminiscent of Justice Higgins’Harvester
judgement (Isaac 2008, p. 298). The rhetoric of‘fairness’was removed from
wagefixing under the Howard government’s‘WorkChoices’policy, but rap-
idly restored following the defeat of the government in the 2007 election. It
appears that, over a century after the Harvester judgement, the Australian
electorate remains wedded to the principles set out by Justice Higgins in 1907.
12.4 The Aftermath
Higgins remained president of the Conciliation and Arbitration Court until
1920 when he resigned in protest against what he saw as the Hughes govern-
ment’s undermining of the arbitration system, although he remained on the
High Court until his death in 1929. On the Arbitration Court he always
maintained the principle he established in the Harvester Case, and as a mem-
ber of the High Court he resisted the narrow federalism of thefirst Chief
Justice, Sir Samuel Griffith, advocating a far broader interpretation of Com-
monwealth power.
The Industrialist, Solicitor, and Justice Higgins