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Why is the film and the book it is based on
called Waltzing Matilda and the Sunshine Harvester Factory?
Waltzing Matilda is a song
about a sheep thief dying in a billabong
an unusual sort of story to be
Australia's unofficial national anthem
But it is also a story
about the terrible shearers' war of 1894
or shearers' strike
It was strikes such as these
that led the Australian Parliament to set up
the Arbitration Court
to settle them and to stop them happening
They were damaging to workers, industry
and the whole community
The Arbitration Court then made
what became Australia's National Minimum Wage
in the Harvester decision of 1907
This was a case about the wages paid
at the Sunshine Harvester Factory
just outside Melbourne
which made machines that harvest wheat and grain
This decision still forms the basis
of the minimum wage that applies
to most workers today
So this is a story about history
but also about how we work today
Every person who gets a job and goes to work
goes to work with the benefit of a minimum wage,
sick leave and annual leave,
developed because of these mostly forgotten events
Events remembered, if they are remembered at all,
in the song Waltzing Matilda
This is a story about the start of our nation,
but also about how we work today
I enjoyed researching and writing the book and the film,
and I hope you find the stories interesting, as I do
A soccer match, Friday night in Melbourne
The crowds, the players,
and at the centre of it all the ref
just him and a whistle
Behind the whistle is the referee's knowledge of the game
and behind that, obviously, an international rule book
which dictates how the game is played
so it's fair for both teams
whether it's played here or in Moscow,
in Barcelona or Ho Chi Minh City
It's always strictly the same game
and it's been that way for a very long time
Behind all this something else is happening
People are making money
selling coffees, pies, drinks, snacks
Behind me are security guards
Behind them cleaners
Downstairs, the ticket sellers and so on
I want to talk about these and others,
ordinary Australians who work
Where is the rule book for them?
Who sets rules at work?
What are the wages and conditions
and who decides if it's even fair?
Is it the same in Barcelona
or in Moscow or Ho Chi Minh City?
No, absolutely not
The Australian system is unique
It affects all of us
It affects us every day
and yet few of us even think about it
Obviously employers and business owners
need to keep costs down to run competitive businesses
so they may not always want to increase wages
or better conditions
So, a worker who wants more
can either negotiate directly with their employer
or let a union do it for them
In theory these two groups discuss things
then just agree on setting wages and conditions
But what happens if they don't agree?
What happens if one group wants more money
and the other won't pay?
What if workers refuse to work?
What happens if employers lock them out
until they accept less?
What happens if they fight?
What if there are guns, riots and the police,
even soldiers, are called in?
It's happened
It's happened here in Australia
and it is the closest we ever got
to a very bloody civil war
And it came as a great shock
That's because it came after a very
prosperous time in Australian history
The 1850s gold rush was a boom time,
a working man's paradise
Money flowed freely
and people invested in both land and housing
But boom is often followed by bust
Banks collapsed in Britain and here
Overseas investors withdrew funds
Property prices collapsed
and a severe depression followed
The river of money just dried up
The failure of banks, the financial pressure, makes hard times
everywhere in this country
We hear of people starving to death in the cities
and nearly every day persons come to our door
begging for something to eat
They are never turned away
and we are constantly called upon to hand out money
The shipping industry was in chaos
In 1890 workers on ships began to strike
for better pay and better conditions
The owners of the shipping lines though closed ranks
to ride out the strikes and ruin the unions
If the unions went broke,
the workers would accept what they were given
or be replaced by the many who were now out of work
Here, in Victoria, there was real outrage
In 1890, on the last day of winter,
about 50,000 people
who all supported the strikers and the unions,
converged in Melbourne for a public demonstration
The governments and plenty of the public
started to get very nervous
Now behind this building, Victoria's Parliament House,
machine gun nests were built and 1000 military volunteers
called up to keep control
The lieutenant colonel in charge told them not to hold back
He said
"If the order to fire is given,
"don't let me see one rifle pointed up in the air
Fire low and lay them out"
So, stakes were high
This time bloodshed was avoided
but for how much longer would that be the case?
Of course it wasn't just in the cities
People in the bush were doing it tough too
In the early 1890s there was a drought
which added to the financial misery
On top of that wool prices had crashed
In Queensland especially,
farmers were pushed to the edge of bankruptcy
So, they decided to pay shearers less
than what they'd received last year
The shearers and their union said, "No way"
to lower rates and went on strike
They refused to be pushed aside and got militant
They set up camps, found some rifles
and started military drills
They set fire to shearing sheds
which employed non-union labour
Anybody who tried to put out the flames was shot at
Not a great look
In one area they attacked a boat
that was coming up the Darling River
The non-union workers were chased off into the scrub
and the boat burnt down to the water line
As the bitter strike spread across the country
it began to look more like the beginnings of a civil war
The arguments were always similar
If the unions would only be reasonable
we would be willing to employ union men
but the time has come when we must insist
on freedom of contract
Freedom of contract meant that bosses were free
to employ non-union labour
What they really meant was only non-union labour
Unions on the other hand, entrenched in camps like this one
wanted union recognition
which meant only union workers got jobs
Neither would budge
Employers wouldn't deal with the unions
Unions said employers were trying to starve them out
It was a bitter stalemate
but we had seen that before at Eureka in 1854
The rebel flag had flown over a conflict
that couldn't be resolved
That had ended up in bloodshed and plenty thought
that this would end up the same way
The early Australian writer, Henry Lawson
was one of the union sympathisers
He wrote of the 1891 shearers' strike
in his poem Freedom on the Wallaby
So we must raise a rebel flag, Like others did before us
And we must sing a rebel song, And join in rebel chorus
We'll make the tyrants feel the sting
O' those that they would throttle
They needn't say the fault was ours
If blood should stain the wattle
It's an ugly image, "If blood should stain the wattle"
but it reflects an ugly time in our history
Strikes ravaged whole communities
supplies ran out in country towns, businesses failed
The strikes went on and on
Eventually in 1894, 2000 soldiers and police were deployed
and an extra 1000 special police sworn in
The strikers were starved into submission
The effect ...
unions, unionists and their families were crushed
People were stunned
It had come far too close to a real war
You might say
"All this is new to me"
"I've never heard of the shearers' strikes of the early 1890s!"
but you have
The lyrics of Waltzing Matilda are closely related to
historical events which happened in Queensland
during one of the shearing strikes
Well down came the squatter mounted on his thorough-bred
Up rode the troopers, one--two--three
Said "where's the jolly jumbuck
you've got in your tucker bag?"
"You'll come-a-waltzing Matilda with me!"
Oh, Waltzing Matilda, Matilda me darling ...
It's a rebel song, a song of defiance
it remains with us to this day
Some even argue that it should be our national anthem
Well up jumped the swagman, who sprang in to the billabong
You'll never catch me alive said he
His ghost may be heard as you pass by the billabong
Who'll come-a-waltzing Matilda with me?
The strikes entered our national psyche
It stopped short of complete civil war but it was a warning
People across the various colonies of Australia
all wanted something better
Alfred Deakin, who would later be Australian Prime Minister
also wanted something better
He was torn by the complexities
He had sent in the troops to break
Melbourne's maritime strike
but he had serious reservations
about where all this was heading
Deakin didn't fully embrace
what the more radical unionists wanted
which was complete state socialism
He thought it bred corruption and selfishness
yet he knew something had to be done
But, as he put it, how, when and where?
The answer had to come soon
Australia was on the verge of Federation
The man at the centre of that movement, Sir Henry Parkes
was also looking for a peaceful solution
Australia now has a population of three and a half million
and the American people numbered only between three and
four millions when they formed the Great Commonwealth
of the United States
The numbers were about the same
and surely what the Americans have done by war
the Australians can bring about in peace
Peace, of course, was the key to it
Politicians and people all wanted a nation with a higher ideal
than either the Old World or America
a nation giving equality before the law
the right to earn a decent living
and yet also not allowing industrial relations
to be settled by those with the most money
or the biggest fists
One politician grappling with this was a South Australian
a radical liberal, Charles Kingston
By what means are the peace and order most threatened?
By strikes and lockouts!
Shall we not then enable industrial questions of the
greatest difficulty to be settled between the parties
upon consideration of right and wrong
rather than the relative strength of the disputants?
Kingston had an idea
A Court that would force warring parties to talk
a Court of conciliation and arbitration that set fair wages
and conditions when workers and employers couldn't agree
Importantly, Kingston's idea was supported
and shared by Alfred Deakin
After Federation in 1901, Deakin put up a Bill to be
voted upon by the new Federal Parliament
The Bill emphasised even-handedness
The proposed Court would favour nobody
The Bill has been drawn looking upon the employer
and employee with perfectly equal eyes
with a view to bringing them before the bar of a tribunal
where they shall have meted out to them
even-handed justice
Okay, even-handed justice
Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?
The only problem was, though
getting the Bill passed into law
The new Australian Parliament was hopelessly divided
Rather than two major political groups there were three
which, as Deakin put it, was kind of like playing a game of
cricket but with three sides on the field rather than the two
There were the Liberal Protectionists, including Deakin
and they supported the Bill
Then there was the Labour Party
and they also supported the Bill for the most part
Then there were the Liberal Free Traders
and they had a whole range of opinions on it
To make things worse, the leader of the Free Traders
was a man called George Reid
and he seemed to be working against Deakin
Reid had a reputation for fence sitting
One minute he seemed to support something
the next he'd oppose it
Sometimes he'd be both for and against
He became known by his enemies as Yes/No Reid
and when Deakin became Prime Minister
George Reid sat opposite—the leader of the opposition
Deakin loathed him
He was considered by many to be the best public speaker
in the country
Unlike Deakin he was funny, slangy
and spoke to the man on the street in his own language
But Deakin saw him as lazy, untrustworthy
and without fixed principles
Privately, he said that he found him physically repulsive
Little wonder then they disagreed about establishing
an Arbitration Court
That said, Reid sometimes seemed to support it
In one speech he told Parliament that Australia could lead
the world in social experiments like these
Then in the rest of the speech he listed all the problems
The protracted arguments led to the fall
of Deakin's government
Then the world's very first National Labour government tried
but it too fell
Ironically it was Reid who ended up forming governments
and passing an Arbitration Bill in 1904
It was a triumph of Deakin's ideas and Reid's politics
They had fought each other fiercely
and Australians had ended up the winners
The reward? Now they had a platform giving workers a voice
but also steering the country safely away from militancy
or worse, class warfare
The new Court was a prize
There was nothing like it in either Britain or the United States
It had the power, if parties couldn't agree
to make a decision and impose it on them by law
Strikes of course didn't just cease overnight
but there was now a forum, a place
Here the parties could be brought together
and forced to resolve the issues
The Court began handing down judgments
for a number of different industries
Its first two awards applied to the industries of the great
1890s strikes, a Maritime Award in 1906
and a Shearing Award in 1907
In that same year came another, a case of great importance
It was called the Sunshine Harvester Case
It would define how Australians work and live to this very day
The case involved fair wages for the workers of H.V. McKay
He made machines to harvest grain crops in a factory in
Sunshine, a suburb in Melbourne's west
At the time of the Harvester Case, Henry Bourne Higgins
was the president of the Arbitration Court
He'd been in all the debates leading up to the formation
of the Court and for the next 20 years
he'd be central to its affairs
Higgins was a man who tackled intellectual problems
with rigour
A lawyer, a politician and a social reformer
he was born the son of a Methodist minister
He grew up in a simple household
He wasn't poor but in the Arbitration Court he gained a
reputation as a champion of workers and trade unions
In the Sunshine Harvester Case, Higgins had to decide
exactly what was a fair and reasonable wage for a worker
Higgins thought it through
He decided first it had to be a family wage, not just money
for a man to keep himself, but to provide for a family of 5
to feed, house and clothe them in simple comfort
To this end, Higgins examined very closely the household
budgets of 11 families, and also looked at what was offered
by state arbitration courts
He rejected the 6 shillings a day, or even less
that some of the states fixed as a base wage
He thought it was not enough to feed people on
Higgins was robust in his calculations
Five shillings a day went towards rents, electricity, gas
clothes and other items like tobacco, newspapers
repairs and so on
About 20 and a half pence, or about 2 shillings
went to buy food
So let's have a look at the sort of food that would buy
an Australian family in 1907
Here I've prepared three meals, the sort that Higgins's fair
wage made possible for Australian families
This is breakfast—porridge, bread, tea, sugar and some milk
And the cost of that is about half of a shilling
Here is Higgins's idea of lunch—cabbage soup made from
these sorts of vegetables, and again a pot of tea
and some sugar to go with it
Once more, the cost is about half a shilling
And here the pièce de résistance, dinner—roast mutton
which is a sort of aged lamb which goes with these kinds of
vegetables, sugar and of course the obligatory pot of tea
Overall our daily food bill comes in at 2 shillings
You might be looking at this and thinking
"Hmm, porridge, cabbage soup, mutton ... kind of bland"
and in a sense you're right
Even at the time it wasn't considered wildly exciting cuisine
but it was good, solid, sustaining food
and Higgins wanted to make sure every family could afford it
Also, there was no social welfare at the time
No unemployment benefit, no sickness benefit
no children's benefits
No safety net at all, and Higgins's research
prompted him in another direction
He made sure his base wage included a bit extra to cover
what he called "evil days" of sickness and unemployment
All these sorts of things became part of the Higgins equation
Higgins at last settled on a number he deemed
both fair and reasonable
An unskilled labourer would earn 7 shillings a day
or 42 shillings a week
Skilled and semi-skilled could earn more
but the basic wage remains the standard
and was not to be messed with
This was something to get excited about
It may not look like much, but the 7 shillings a day
resonated with people
It was a rate from a previous prosperous era
the workers' paradise decades that came before the
terrible 1890s Depression
The old standard of living was being restored
So Australia had its first decent minimum wage
calculated in a reasoned, methodical and generous way
It was enough to feed, clothe and house a family
and Higgins's work set off a chain reaction for wages
across Australia
Don't get me wrong though, the rollout wasn't instantaneous
Most awards were still state awards set by judges
sitting on state courts and wage boards
Some judges disagreed with Justice Higgins
They set minimum wages of 6 shillings a day, not 7
sometimes less than 6
In 1909 Victoria's Justice A'Beckett said
"A wage of 36 shillings is enough to support a man"
which it was, but not enough to support a family
In 1910 Justice Hood opted
"Not for a living wage, but one that the company could afford"
In New South Wales in 1913
Justice Hayden used a family of two, not three
to justify a wage of less than 6 shillings a day
So you can see how these things moved back and forth
You can also see how things could have spun off
in a completely different direction
Gradually though Higgins's argument won through
The states began to follow the national standard
It took 15 years, but Harvester became
the Australian minimum wage
Of course, this whole story isn't just about wages
but about the way we, as Australians, want to live
What Higgins described as
"Meeting the normal needs of a person living
in a civilised community"
By the 1920s some commentators said that
the Arbitration Court's job was maintaining that
civilised standard of living
The standard had been set at Harvester, 7 shillings
but it couldn't just be frozen there
It had to keep in step with prices
So quarter by quarter, year by year, the courts adjusted
the basic wage in line with inflation
This led the government to establish its first ever measure
of the cost of living
the Consumer Price Index or CPI
For instance, a cabbage bought in 1907 wasn't the same
price as a cabbage bought in 1915
and you needed to keep track of that
So the CPI measured what a household spent
on a range of goods and services from one year to the next
Despite all this, Justice Higgins wasn't satisfied
He was still at the Arbitration Court
and he wanted it all revisited
Higgins called for a review
He insisted that the standards he'd used for setting Harvester
had been, at best, rough and he wanted it all checked
Now, this is Billy Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia
for 7 years from 1915 through to 1922
Hughes and Higgins didn't always see eye to eye
In fact they got on each other's nerves
but Hughes was passionate about rights for workers
and getting votes
So in response to Higgins's request, Hughes set up
a Royal Commission to re-examine it all more scientifically
and the Commission started with what it called
standards of comfort
So the size of houses, of localities, of conveniences
even the size of baths and washtubs
They looked at clothing—price, appearance, how well it fitted
Food had to meet set calorie levels, renew tissue
and maintain weight as well as provide warmth, energy
and satisfy the needs of growing children
Under miscellaneous items, the Commission scrutinised
doctor and dentist fees, domestic help, union dues
household utensils, drapery, crockery, envelopes, stamps
recreation, amusements, bus fares
and even trips to the barber
Employers looked on, not really liking what they saw
They feared that the blowout in costs would force many
of them out of business
The Commonwealth statistician agreed
He did his figures and warned Hughes that the entire output
of the country each year wouldn't add up to the new wages
being suggested by the Royal Commission
It was too much
Manufacturing would fail, primary production would fall
and the country would be left in ruin
So what was the result of this Royal Commission?
Well, the Arbitration Court decided to go back
to the original standard set by the Harvester judgment
The rates of pay set down by Justice Higgins
had proved to be once again both fair and reasonable
Billy Hughes's Royal Commission was important though
It had reminded the country that it couldn't just suggest
a level of wages that was way beyond industry's
capacity to pay
To that end, the Arbitration Court's role was a balancing one
between family needs and what employers
and business owners could provide
The Court judges weren't that interested in wild statements
or over the top rhetoric from either side
General prognostications of disaster on the one hand, or of
uninjured prosperity on the other, are of little or no value
So the task of the Court remained that of weighing up
the position of opposing sides and finding a fair solution
The Court often said, though, that it didn't possess
a magic wand to produce wealth
Producing wealth was the job of business and industry
This warning really struck home in the 1930s
Great Depression when Australia's gross domestic product
crashed
The Arbitration Court responded by dropping the basic wage
by 10%
This difficult step hammered home the Court's will to keep
wages manageable
The survival of the workplace was as important
as the survival of the workforce
By 1934 most of the 10% wage cut was restored
As the nation became more productive, new entitlements
won in the Court were often seen to benefit both parties
I'll give you an example
In 1935 the Court introduced one week annual leave
It told employers that yes, this would increase costs
but the payoff would be better workers
more refreshed and invigorated and therefore
more productive workers
And this kind of logic runs through the early history of the
Arbitration Court as it tried to bring benefit to both sides
But sometimes that seemed impossible
A case in point is Aboriginal workers on isolated and remote
Northern Territory cattle stations
many of whom were still denied the minimum rate
In 1966 they began a fight for equal wages and conditions
led by Vincent Lingiari, one of the local Gurindji people
they staged a walk off at Wave Hill Station
Their union made an application to the
Arbitration Commission
that it was time to pay the same rate to all
stockmen in the Northern Territory, Aboriginal or not
It may seem straightforward to us, but pastoralists resisted
They argued that because most Aboriginal stockmen still
lived traditional semi-tribal lives, they hadn't been trained
and educated in the same way as white Australian workers
therefore their productivity was lower and as a consequence
they deemed that they should be paid less
The Commission took a long time to think that one through
Eventually it passed down its judgment
There'd be one law and one wage rate for all
Aboriginal or not
The Court also said that the problem of lesser productivity
could be dealt with if stockmen and employer agreed
and registered what was called a slow worker permit
This allowed for a lower overall wage in cases where factors
like education or tribal obligation might decrease productivity
But in the end neither pastoralists nor Aboriginal stockmen
took this up
Perhaps they simply didn't want to
Unfortunately, since equal pay there has been a substantial
reduction in the numbers of Aboriginal stockmen
Some say equal pay killed off opportunities
others that modern technological change
would've reduced the numbers anyway
Either way one thing remained clear—unequal wages based
on race, not productivity, couldn't continue
That kind of discrimination would no longer wash
in the sort of country that Australia had become
At about the same time, another important inequality
in the Harvester decision needed to be addressed
namely women
The Harvester wage was based on the idea of a husband
supporting a wife and children
But did the opposite apply?
Did a wife with an outside job receive a family wage
to support her husband and children?
The answer was no, and it remained no
until well into the 1960s and 70s
In Justice Higgins's time only 5% of married women worked
outside the home
so it was kind of natural to assume that a wife
with a job was already being supported by her husband
and so she'd get a lesser wage
Revealingly, though, the same didn't apply to single men
They didn't have to support a family and yet the Court
didn't insist that they get a lesser wage
Plenty of single women worked but when they got married
they were told to resign
The assumption of the Court and of society was that
now they would go off, raise families and never come back
to the workplace
and that was that
The first major change to this took place
in the Second World War
Then, with so many men off fighting overseas
women were all of a sudden very badly needed
in the workforce
In the course of the war women's wages were bumped up
from 54 to 75% of the male wage
in an attempt to encourage them into the workplace
After the war this rate remained despite various attempts
to wind it back
It was a start, if nothing else
From that time on, the numbers of working women increased
By the late 1960s they made up nearly a third
of the workforce
It was very difficult by this stage to believe
that a woman's place was just in the home
Women agitated for real change and in 1969
the Arbitration Commission responded
by hearing the Equal Pay Case
It recognised the principle of equal pay for equal work
but differentiated between men's work and women's work
In an age of increasing technology this made no sense
and three years later in 1972
the Arbitration Commission applied one rate
to both males and females
In a century where so much changed
both industrially and technologically
Australia emerged as something of a world leader
It had led the world in the delivery of democratic ideals
without revolution and without bloodshed
Before the minimum wage
an Australian worker could work long hours without
any guarantee of being paid
Some bosses illegally withheld money
and if a worker fell ill they received nothing
and their family could go without
As a result of Arbitration Court decisions
weekly working hours were reduced from 48 to 44 to 40
and finally 38 hours a week
But the Court knew how to pick its moments
In 1947, for instance, it brought in the 40 hour week
saying that industry was booming and nature bountiful
Overall the Court knew it was shaping
an Australia of the future
It brought us the Australian weekend
It gave equal pay for women
and it brought in things like sick pay, annual leave
and parental leave for both mothers and fathers
The contrast between Australia in 1900 and today is stark
Today the economy is far more productive
We are wealthier and labour standards have risen
Today a worker works 38 ordinary hours a week
Every man, woman and child
who sets foot in a workplace can start
knowing that there's such a thing as the minimum wage
They're also entitled to at least four weeks annual leave
and 10 days sick pay a year
All this and other benefits have been developed by
the Arbitration Court over the last hundred years
and it started with an idea
The idea that employers and employees settle disputes
without violence
meeting, negotiating and if necessary
arguing their case in a Court
It's a triumph we can be proud of
and it's a very, very long way from the shearing sheds
the guns, the mobs and rough justice of the 1890s
Well up jumped the swagman, who sprang in to the billabong
You'll never catch me alive said he
His ghost may be heard as you pass by the billabong
Who'll come-a-waltzing Matilda with me?
Oh, Waltzing Matilda, Matilda me darling ...