R v Commonwealth Conciliation & Arbitration Commission; Metal Trades Employers' Association, Ex p [1966] HCA 8

High Court of Australia Barwick C.J. McTiernan, Taylor, Menzies, Windeyer and Owen JJ. R v Commonwealth Conciliation & Arbitration Commission; Metal Trades Employers' Association, Ex p [1966] HCA 8

ORDER Rule nisi discharged with costs.

The judgment of the Court was delivered by Barwick C.J.:—

March 2 Barwick C.J., McTiernan, Taylor, Menzies, Windeyer and Owen JJ.

The prosecutor seeks to prohibit three Deputy Presidents of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and a Commissioner from sitting in two separate benches, only one of which includes the Commissioner, to hear certain applications or portions thereof now before the Commission. These are an application by the Electrical Trades Union and other respondent unions for a variation of the Metal Trades Award by increasing the margins fixed thereby in all of the classifications of the award: second, an application by the same respondents for a variation in the basic wage as set out in the said award, and third, a log of claims of the prosecutor seeking a variation of the Metal Trades Award.

This log is expressed in the alternative. The first alternative seeks the removal from the award of the reference to a basic wage and the awarding of a money sum as the total wage payable in respect of each classification of the award, this money sum to be computed by taking the figures presently appearing in the award for the basic wage and for margins and increasing their respective totals by a stated percentage. The alternative asks that in lieu of the obligation to pay a basic wage and a margin, there should be imposed an obligation to pay a total sum which is to be made up of the basic wage as presently fixed in the award, plus 3/-, of the margins as presently set out increased by 1% and of a figure equal to 0.5% of the total of the basic wage and of the margins as thus respectively increased.