Re Turbet; Ex p Australian Building Construction Employees' & Builders' Labourers' Federation [1980] HCA 47

High Court of Australia Stephen, Mason, Murphy, Aickin and Wilson JJ. Re Turbet; Ex p Australian Building Construction Employees' & Builders' Labourers' Federation [1980] HCA 47

ORDER Order nisi discharged.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

1980, Dec. 2 Stephen J.

On 4th May 1979, Commissioner Turbet made a finding that an industrial dispute existed between the Metal Trades Industry Association, an employer, Electric Power Transmission Pty. Ltd., and two trade unions, the Federated Ironworkers' Association ("the F.I.A.") and the Australian Building Construction Employees' and Builders Labourers' Federation ("the B.L.F.").

The Commissioner's finding followed a notification by the Metal Trades Industry Association of a situation likely to lead to an industrial dispute.

In his finding the Commissioner described the dispute as relating to "the allocation of labour to effect transportation and unloading of steel from Electric Power Transmission Pty. Ltd., Sydney plant and the Loy Yang power station construction site in the Latrobe Valley of Victoria".

The employer was engaged in the construction of an electric power generating station at Loy Yang. For that purpose structural steel fabricated in its Sydney plant was to be transported by rail from Sydney to Morwell in Victoria, from where it was to be carried by road to the nearby Loy Yang site. However, despite the terms of the finding, there was no evidence before the Commissioner of any dispute relating to any part of the inter-State transportation of steel to Loy Yang. The evidence of disputation was confined to a dispute about which group of employees should have allocated to them the work of unloading the steel on its arrival at Loy Yang and of subsequently handling that steel on the site. The dispute of course affected the employer, since each union made a claim on it inconsistent with the other union's claim; but essentially the dispute lay between the two unions, as to whose members should have the work allocated to them.