R v Association of Professional Engineers of Australia; Ex parte Victoria [1957] HCA 95

Phones

i

100 C.L.R.J OF AUSTRALIA.

(HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA.]

THE QUEEN

AGAINST

THE ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS OF AUSTRALIA AND ANOTHER ;

Ex PARTE

THE STATE OF VICTORIA AND OTHERS Prosecutors.

Industrial Law (Cth.)—Log of claims—Allegation that log vague and indefinite— Impossibility of construing failure to respond thereto as equivalent to an intention to dispute an industrial demand—Prohibition—Sufficiency of log as foundation for industrial dispute—Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904-1956.

'The Association of Professional Engincers on behalf of its members and all engineers eligible for membership, the qualifications for which were set out, served upon employers including certain States and State agencies a log of

w claims in respect of employment involving professional engineering duties, rs which log stipulated for the payment of minimum salaries in the various engineering categories therein mentioned and required that in each particular employment a salary should be paid appropriate to the duties thereof, such salary to be fixed by agreement between the individual employer and pro- fessional engineer subject to the observance of the minimum rate of salary prescribed for the particular category. The States and State agencies did not reply to the service of the log, and upon the association bringing the matter on before a conciliation commissioner for determination sought an order absolute for a writ of prohibition to restrain the hearing and determina- tion of the matter upon the grounds that the log was expressed in a manner 80 vague and indefinite that it was impossible to construe a failure to respond thereto as equivalent to an intention to dispute an industrial demand.

Held, that the log exhibited no such vagueness or uncertainty as to make it incapable of giving rise to an industrial dispute with which a conciliation commissioner might deal and accordingly the order nisi for prohibition should be discharged.