R v Ludeke; Ex parte Queensland Electricity Commission [1985] HCA 55

High Court of Australia Gibbs C.J. Mason, Wilson, Brennan, Deane and Dawson JJ. R v Ludeke; Ex parte Queensland Electricity Commission [1985] HCA 55

ORDER Application for writs of prohibition and certiorari dismissed.

Cur. adv. vult.

The Court delivered the following written judgment:—

Sept. 5 Gibbs C.J., Mason, Wilson, Brennan, Deane and Dawson JJ.

This is an application by the electricity authorities in Queensland ("the applicants") for prohibition and certiorari directed to a Full Bench of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission ("the Commission") and to Commissioner Brown and the Electrical Trades Union of Australia ("the E.T.U."), a registered organization of employees under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904 Cth, as amended, whose members are employed in all States of the Commonwealth. The application relates to proceedings initiated by the E.T.U. in the Commission for an award regulating wages and working conditions in the electricity generation and distribution industry. In the proceedings the E.T.U. seeks a settlement of an interstate industrial dispute said to have arisen out of the non-acceptance of a log of claims served by the E.T.U. on the applicants and electricity authorities in all States except New South Wales, and in the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory in February and March 1985.

The first issue in the proceedings which came before Commissioner Brown was whether there was an industrial dispute within the meaning of the Act. Except for the applicants, the parties served with the log of claims did not oppose a finding that such a dispute existed. The applicants opposed such a finding on the ground that the only genuine dispute in existence was one between the southeast Queensland Electricity Board ("S.E.Q.E.B.") and the Queensland Branch of the E.T.U., the Branch being registered as an organization of employees under the State industrial legislation. The applicants claimed that this dispute, which related to the employment by S.E.Q.E.B. of contract labour in electrical work in southeastern Queensland, was confined to that State and that the apparent dispute which arose from the non-acceptance of the log of claims was not genuine or bona fide.