R v Gough; Ex parte BP Refinery (Westernport) Pty Ltd [1966] HCA 30

High Court of Australia Barwick C.J. McTiernan, Taylor, Windeyer and Owen JJ. R v Gough; Ex parte BP Refinery (Westernport) Pty Ltd [1966] HCA 30

ORDER Rule nisi made absolute. Respondent, The Federated Storemen and Packers' Union of Australia, to pay the prosecutor's costs of the application for the rule nisi and of the application to make the same absolute.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

May 17 Barwick C.J., Taylor, Windeyer and Owen JJ.

The question in this case, which, essentially, is one of fact is whether there exists, between the prosecutor on the one hand, and the Federated Storemen and Packers' Union of Australia (hereinafter referred to as the Union) on the other hand, an industrial dispute which extends beyond the limits of Victoria.

It appears that the prosecutor proposes to operate an oil refinery which is at present in the course of construction and nearing completion at Westernport in that State and the evidence shows that for some time the Union and the Australian Workers' Union have been in competition with one another for the right, upon completion of the refinery, to recruit employees engaged in the refining process as union members. No such employees have as yet been engaged by the Company. Attempts have been made both by the Union and the Australian Workers' Union to secure an award binding upon the Company but up to the present time neither organization has been successful. It is unnecessary to recount the various manoeuvres which have taken place but it may be observed that an earlier log of claims served by the Union on the prosecutor and other oil refinery companies in other States was, for reasons which it is unnecessary to set out, withdrawn as against the Company and that the dispute, if any, which resulted from the rejection of the log by the prosecutor thereupon ceased to exist. What happened thereafter was that a log of claims was served by the Union upon the Company and upon five individuals and companies, referred to as "agents" in other States. Such individuals and companies are engaged in the distribution of petroleum products in the States in which they carry on business but they are not the agents of the prosecutor. Indeed, they have no business or industrial relations of any kind with the prosecutor whose business will consist exclusively of the business of operating an oil refinery for the refining of oil belonging to other companies and of transmitting the products of the refining process by pipe-line to various companies.