Ex parte H.V. McKay, commonly referred to as the Harvester case, is a landmark Australian labour law decision of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration. The case arose under the Excise Tariff Act 1906 which imposed an excise duty on goods manufactured in Australia, £6 in the case of a stripper harvester, however if a manufacturer paid "fair and reasonable" wages to its employees, it was be excused from paying the excise duty. The Court therefore had to consider what was a "fair and reasonable" wage for the purpose of the act.
H.B. Higgins declared that "fair and reasonable" wages for an unskilled male worker required a living wage that was sufficient for "a human being in a civilised community" to support a wife and three children in "frugal comfort", while a skilled worker should receive an additional margin for their skills, regardless of the employer's capacity to pay.
While the High Court of Australia in 1908 held that the Excise Tariff Act 1906 was invalid in R v Barger, the judgment nevertheless continued to be the basis for the minimum wage system that extended to half of the Australian workforce in less than 20 years. The decision was credited as the foundation for the national minimum wage included in the Fair Work Act 2009. As well as national ramifications, the decision was of international significance.
Background
In 1906 the second Deakin government was in power, with support from the Labor party. Prime Minister Deakin's "New Protection" policy was to provide tariff protection to employers in exchange for "fair and reasonable" wages for employees. In implementing this policy, the Commonwealth government introduced two bills, that would become the Customs Tariff Act 1906, and the Excise Tariff Act 1906, Higgins was a member of the Australian Parliament and spoke in support of the bills that imposed custom and excise duties that were payable on certain agricultural machinery, including stripper harvesters. The Excise Tariff Act 1906 contained a proviso that the excise would not be payable if the manufacturer paid "fair and reasonable" wages as follows: Provided that this Act shall not apply to goods manufactured by any person in any part of the Commonwealth under conditions as to remuneration of labour which— are declared by resolution of both Houses of Parliament to be fair and reasonable; or are in accordance with an industrial award under the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904,; or are in accordance with the terms of an industrial agreement filed under the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904; or <li>are, on an application made for the purpose to the President of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, declared to be fair and reasonable by him or by a Judge of the Supreme Court of a State or any person or persons who compose a State Industrial Authority to whom he may refer the matter.
H. B. Higgins
H. B. Higgins had been a member of the Parliament of Victoria and in 1896 supported the trial introduction of a minimum wage. He successfully argued at the 1897-1898 conventions that the constitution should contain a guarantee of religious freedom, and also a provision giving the federal government the power to make laws relating to the conciliation and arbitration of industrial disputes. The industrial disputes proposal was initially unsuccessful, however Higgins was undeterred and succeeded in 1898. Despite these successes, Higgins J had opposed the draft constitution produced by the convention as too conservative, and campaigned unsuccessfully to have it defeated at the 1899 Australian constitutional referendum.
After the federation of Australia, Higgins was a member of the Australian Parliament as a member of the Protectionist Party, but was in broad agreement with the Labor party's social reforms. When the Labor Party sought to amend the Conciliation and Arbitration Bill to cover state railway employees, Higgins was one of the radicals who supported the amendments and helped bring down Deakin's government. When Labor formed a minority government in 1904, Higgins became Attorney-General in the Labor ministry, because Labor had no suitably qualified lawyer in Parliament.
In October 1906 Higgins was appointed to the High Court and the following year O'Connor J resigned as President of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration and was replaced by Higgins J.