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Conciliation and Arbitration in Australia — Where the Emphasis?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 January 2025

Richard Kirby
Richard Kirby*
Affiliation:
Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission
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Extract

I give personal and not official opinions in this article but as the first, and so far only, President of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission the conciliation and arbitration I discuss shall be those in the national area.

The Commission’s work comes under fire from many directions. Those who see it as a predominantly legal institution are very critical. Curiously enough they divide into two opposing sections, the one pointing to the Commission’s failure to adhere strictly to a predictable judicial process and the other condemning it for being too legalistic. On the other hand, there are those who look on the Commission as an economic legislative body and criticise its alleged inability to gauge the impact of its decision making policy on the level of economic activity in Australia. Indeed, all criticisms, if one adopts the exclusively particular view of the Commission which each set of critics has, may have some justification.

Type
Research Article
Information
Federal Law Review , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , March 1970 , pp. 1 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 The Australian National University

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References

1 Waterside Workers' Federation of Australia v. J. W. Alexander Ltd. (1918) 25 C.L.R. 434, 462-463.

2 The Queen v. Kelly; Ex parte Australian Railways Union (1953) 89 C.L.R. 461, 474-475.

3 This statement does not apply to the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory.

4 Higgins, H. B., A New Province for Law and Order (1922) 167Google Scholar.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Supra n. 1.

8 Transcript of proceedings of 21 August, 1956.

9 (1969) 43 A.L.I.R. 150.

10 Not yet reported in Commonwealth Arbitration Reports but see Print No. B2200 National Wage Case of 1967; also transcript of proceedings p. 743, 5 June, 1967.

11 Supra n. 9 at 151-153.

12 Description of aims of the Industrial Relations Societies repeated in each copy of its Journal.

13 The Robert Garran Memorial Oration delivered at Canberra on 20 November, 1967 and published by the Australian Regional Groups Royal Institute of Public Administration.

14 H. B. Higgins, op. cit., supra n. 4, p. 2.

15 H.R.H., The Duke of Edinburgh's Third Commonwealth Study Conference Australia 1968. Background paper No. 10, 12Google Scholar.

16 In case there is such an offence as self-plagiarism I must explain that for one speaking or writing on different aspects of the same scene as often as I do, repetition is unavoidable or at least I have found it so. I have therefore not bothered to acknowledgequotations or near quotations of my own but merely make the general admission that I have used previously expressed ideas if I still hold them and if they relate to my present theme. Similarly I have not attempted to rephrase my earlier descriptions of the same things, as for example the parliamentarydebate on the 1956 legislation.