R v Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration

This case concerned applications for orders nisi for prohibition against the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration and its President. The applicants, employers in the building trade, sought to prohibit further proceedings under an award made by the President in favour of the Australian Builders' Labourers' Federation. The award, which fixed wages and hours, also included provisions for employers to compensate employees for personal injuries sustained in the course of employment, with liability and quantum to be determined by a Board of Reference.

The central legal issues before the High Court were whether an industrial dispute existed that extended beyond the limits of any one State, as required by section 51(xxxv) of the Constitution, and whether the provisions of the award relating to compensation for injuries were valid. The applicants argued that the building trade was inherently local in nature and that the dispute, as framed, did not meet the constitutional threshold for federal jurisdiction. They also contended that the compensation provisions were beyond the Court's power to award.

A majority of the High Court, comprising Isaacs, Gavan Duffy, Powers, and Rich JJ., held that the building trade was an industry capable of giving rise to an industrial dispute extending beyond one State, and that such a dispute did exist. They defined an industrial dispute extending beyond one State as one that, at a given moment, exists in more than one State. However, Griffith C.J. and Barton J., in dissent, argued that if an industry's operations and conditions were purely local and had no direct action or reaction on operations in other States, then an industrial dispute in that industry could not extend beyond a single State. The majority also found that the provisions of the award concerning compensation for injuries and the establishment of a Board of Reference to determine such claims were invalid, as they were beyond the scope of the Court's jurisdiction to make an award.

The Court ordered that prohibition would lie to prevent further proceedings under the invalid portions of the award, and, in the view of the dissenting judges, to prevent further proceedings altogether due to the lack of a valid industrial dispute extending beyond one State.