Senate
1 September 1920

8th Parliament · 1st Session



The President (Senator the Hon, T. Givens) took the chair at 3 p.m., and read prayers.

page 4000

CLERK OF THE SENATE

Retirement of Mr.c.g. Duffy, C.M.G.

Senator E D MILLEN:
Minister for Repatriation · NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

- (By leave). - Honorable senators will recollect that, just prior to the adjournment on Friday, expressions of appreciation of the services renderedby Mr. Duffy, and of good-will towards that gentleman personally, were made by the President, and by Senator Pearce on behalf of the Ministry, and of honorable senators generally. It seems, upon consideration, that it would not be inappropriate that a formal motion should be placed on the records of the Senate embodying the appreciation expressed on that occasion, and I therefore move -

That, on the occasion of his retirement from the position of Clerk of the Senate, the Senate places on record its appreciation of the many and valuable services rendered to the Commonwealth Parliament by Mr. Charles Gavan Duffy, C.M.G., and wishes him many years of happiness and prosperity.

In view of what took place on Friday, it will, I think, be sufficient if I formally submit this motion, in order that it may be entered upon the records of this Chamber.

Senator GARDINER:
New South Wales

– In seconding the motion, I express my very high appreciation of the ability displayed by the lateClerk of the Senate, Mr. Duffy, whilst occupying that position in this Chamber. The Senate has had the good fortune - orso it appears to me - to be excellently well served by its officers, and Mr. Duffy was no exception to the rule. I have very much pleasure in joining in the good wishes for his future expressed in the motion.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Motion (by Senator E. D. Millen) agreed to -

That the President convey officially to Mr. Duffy the resolution agreed to by the Senate

page 4000

PAPERS

The following papers were presented : -

Aerial Navigation - Convention for Regulation, signed at Paris, 13th October, 1919.

North-Western Australia - Report by Mr. G. Hobler, Engineer of Ways and Works, Commonwealth Railways, oh tour of inspection.

page 4000

QUESTION

GENERAL ELECTION

Refund of Deposits of Senate Candidates

Senator GARDINER:

– I ask the Leader of the Government in the Senate whether it is the intention of the Government to introduce a Bill to provide for the refund of deposits lost by Senate candidates at the last general election.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– Steps to that end will be taken. Whether it will be done by a Bill, or by submitting a vote on the Estimates for the purpose, I am not yet in a position to state definitely.

page 4000

QUESTION

RIFLE CLUBS

Senator KEATING:
TASMANIA

– In view of state ments appearing in the press, will the Minister for Defence say whether itis the intention of the Government to discontinue, or substantially reduce, the financial assistance hitherto granted to rifle clubs!

Senator PEARCE:
Minister for Defence · WESTERN AUSTRALIA · NAT

– It is not usual to anticipate the Estimates in the way suggested by the honorable senator’s question.

All I can say is that, very shortly now, I hope within a few days, a statement on Defence policy generally will be made, and the question asked by the honorable senator will then be fully answered.

Senator Keating:

– Were the press announcements on the subject not inspired?

Senator PEARCE:

– No press announcements on the subject have been inspired by the Government.

page 4001

QUESTION

SIR JOHN GELLIBRAND

Senator ELLIOTT:
VICTORIA

– Has the Minister for Defence noticed that Sir John Gellibrand, at a meeting in Tasmania, stated that the reason which induced him to accept the Police Commissionership of Victoria was that the Defence Department required his services ? If the Minister has noticed that statement, will he say whether any one, on his authority, made such a promise of employment; and, if so, what employment, to Sir John Gellibrand ?

Senator PEARCE:
NAT

– I did notice the statement referred to. I have no knowledge of any employment of a military character being offered to Sir John Gellibrand. However, I assumed that the statement meant that he hoped that whilst occupying the position of Police Commissioner in Victoria he would be able also to render service to the Citizen Forces. Many similarly highly placed officers do now, and have in the past, rendered valuable service in that way.

page 4001

QUESTION

WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY

Senator PRATTEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · NAT

asked the Minister representing the Minister for the Navy, upon notice -

  1. W<hich Department of the Commonwealth is now controlling wireless communication inside and outside of Australia?
  2. Have any steps been taken in connexion with the further development of wireless communications from the Commonwealth to overseas countries?
  3. If so, how long will it be before present congested cable communications will be relieved?
Senator PEARCE:
NAT

– The Minister for the Navy supplies the following answers : -

  1. Department of the Navy.
  2. The report of the Imperial Wireless Telegraphy Committee 1919-1920 has just been received, and recommends that a scheme of Imperial wireless communication be established connecting the units of the Empire by geographical steps of about 2,000 miles each; and finds that an Imperial wireless scheme established in this manner would afford reliable, expeditious and economic communication for commercial, social, and press purposes throughout the Empire; and that it would meet essential Imperial strategic requirements. This report is being considered in connexion with the question of wireless communication from the Commonwealth to oversea countries.
  3. See answer to No. 2.

page 4001

WAR SERVICE HOMES BILL

Third Reading

Motion (by Senator E. D. Millen) proposed -

That this Bill be now read a third time.

Senator KEATING:
Tasmania

– It is not my intention to delay the passing of this Bill, but I desire to address myself to one phase of it for just a few moments. I do not oppose the passage of the measure, because I approve of the principles which are contained in it, and because the Minister, for Repatriation (Senator E. D. Millen), in submitting it for our consideration, gave ample justification for all its provisions. Especially do I approve of the proposal to increase the amount of the advance for war service homes from £700 to £800, subject to the amendment which wa8 moved by Senator Foll, and to which tha Minister himself assented. In the course of his second-reading speech upon the Bill, the Minister gave us a very interesting resume of the activities of his Department - a resume which reflected the very highest credit, not only upon the honorable gentleman himself, but upon our returned soldiers. There is one aspect of this measure, however, to which I desire to invite his sympathetic consideration. In its administration a good deal of legal work will require to be done, especially in connexion, with conveyancing. Now, some time after our soldiers were returning to Australia in large numbers, some of them from Tasmania who had gone away during the early stages of the war, and who were legal practitioners, complained to me that they were not getting Commonwealth legal work. What applied to them in that regard presumably applied to soldier legal practitioners who had returned to the other States. In Melbourne and Sydney soldier legal practitioners have received from both State and Commonwealth very . generous recognition. But in the outlying States like Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia, and Queensland the same practice has not been observed. Perhaps it is not so easy to apply it there. I took the complaint made by these soldiers in the form of a letter to the Prime Minister (Mr. Hughes), and to his credit be it said that it required only a very few minutes for him to appreciate the position. In his room in this building he’ took the letter, placed it upon the mantelpiece, and immediately indorsed it to . Sir Robert Garran, telling him that he wished effect to be given., throughout the Commonwealth, to the principle of utilizing the services of returned soldier legal practitioners wherever possible, and that they were to be given preference over outside legal practitioners. In Melbourne, of course, we have our Commonwealth Crown Law Department, and there is a branch of that Department in Sydney. But there are notbranches in the other States, and as a consequence much of the Commonwealth legal work there is being done by outside practitioners. I repeat that under this Bill a great deal of legal work will have to be done, especially in the matter of conveyancing. Many of the soldiers who went to the war left legal practices which they had just begun “to build up. After three or four years’ service abroad they are now starting again off scratch under very great dis advantages. They find that other members of the profession have secured work which they might have obtained had they remained in Australia.

The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon T Givens:
QUEENSLAND

– Will the honorable senator kindly connect his remarks with the motion for the third reading of the Bill ?

Senator KEATING:

– I am merely asking that in the administration of this measare effect shall be given to the principle that, ‘as far as . possible, employment shall be provided for returned soldier legal practitioners. I will not occupy more than a moment or two longer. Sir Robert Garran has endeavoured to give effect to that principle. Hitherto he has been prevented from doing so by .reason -of the fact that much of the repatriation work has been done through the Commonwealth Bank, which employs its own solicitors. Latterly, however, that Department has arranged to have its own legal work in the States attended to directly on its behalf. I ask the Minister to see that in the outlying States, in which there is not a branch, of the Crown Law Department of the Commonwealth, lists of returned soldier legal practitioners shall be kept, and that the legal work which will arise under this Bill shall be given to them in preference to outsiders. I know that if I can get the sympathetic consideration of the Minister’ to. my suggestion, his ingenuity . and application will be brought to “bear with a view to securing satisfactory results. I have every confidence that his sympathy will be forthcoming, and I believe that the work which has been done by his Department reflects great credit, not only upon him, but upon our returned soldiers. If he takes up this matter, . I have no doubt ‘that credit will also be . reflected upon our returned soldier legal practitioners, who have already done their duty to this country, and to whom we should now do our duty.

Senator FOLL:
Queensland

.- During the course of his speech upon the motion for the second reading of this Bill, I understood- the Minister for Repatriation (Senator E. D. Millen) to say that applications for war service homes are dealt with in the order in which they are lodged. Now, the principal Act was placed upon our statute-book some eighteen months ago, and many returned soldiers who then lodged applications had been back in Australia for some time. Others, who’ have recently returned, find their names at the bottom of the list, notwithstanding that they have considerably more fighting service to their credit. According to the Minister’s own statement, the homes which are being’ built to-day are costing more than those which were built twelve months ago. Consequently, the men with the longest period of service will be the chief ‘sufferers, inasmuch as they will be required to pay considerably more for their houses. ‘ In dealing with these applications, I think that not merely the . order in which they are received, but all the other circumstances of each particular case, shouldbe taken into consideration. There have been quite a number of eases in which the names of men with the longest period of service have been relegated to the bottom of the list. As a matter of fact, the longer returned soldiers postpone lodging their applications, the more likely they are to be prejudiced in view of the constantly increasing prices of material. I submit this matter for the Minister’s consideration.

Senator GARDINER:
New South Wales

– I listened with a good deal of attention to the speech made by the Minister for Repatriation (Senator E. D. Millen) in introducing the Bill, and if things in the garden are as lovely as he painted them, there is no doubt that there is nothing wrong ; but I am not at all satisfied with the speed at which the houses are being built. Mr. Higgs recently made a calculation in another place, and I do not know how many hundred years’ old the last man would be, according to the honorable member’s calculation, before he got his war-service home. The speed anticipated eighteen months ago, when the first War Service Homes Bill was introduced, is not nearly being kept up.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– No estimate was officially given as to the rate.

Senator GARDINER:

– I know there was no official estimate; but statements were made.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– That is nothing - you make statements.

Senator GARDINER:

– But mine will bear examination two years afterwards. That is the difference. My claim is that things are not as they should be in this matter. Senator Foll emphasized the disadvantageous position in which a man who has a fine record of service, and who has come back late, will find himself, because he will have to wait, and probably pay a higher price for his house.

Senator Earle:

– How will the honorable senator remedy that?

Senator GARDINER:

– I admit that it is a very difficult matter to remedy, and I am not ready, off-hand, to suggest a solution.

Senator Wilson:

– To prevent strikes would be No. 1 way.

Senator GARDINER:

– If the honorable senator wants suggestions, one very easy method would be for the Commonwealth to take possession of the means of production of the things required for house building. We have millions of acres of timber land, and if the Government put a few timber mills into them, they could get timber in any quantity for much less than they are paying now. Similarly a few thousands of pounds put into cement manufacture would insure plentiful supplies of cement. There are quite a number of ways which could be adopted if the Government were in earnest. I do not wish to discuss in detail now matters which could have been better dealt with on the second reading or in Committee.

Senator Drake-Brockman:

– But you were not here.

Senator GARDINER:

– I was here during the greater part of the secondreading stage. As the country has decided how the business of the Senate is to be conducted, I bow to the will of the country. The members of the Government party have the matter in their own hands. All I propose to do is to find fault with them occasionally. Some time ago I put on the notice-paper a question as to the number of houses constructed by the War Service Homes Commission, and the number constructed by the Commonwealth Bank under an agreement with Messrs. Kirkpatrick and Son, architects, I propose now to use the figures which were given to me before I gave notice of that question. If they are not correct the Minister for Repatriation is to blame, because it is a fortnight since I asked the question, and although the informationwas supplied to him, he said that it was being withheld.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– I did not say it was withheld. I said the answer crossed me as I was coming here. I have had it here every day since, but the honorable senator has not been in attendance to ask for it. In fact, I have it with me now.

Senator GARDINER:

– The question was put on the notice-paper.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– And the honorable senator was not here to ask for it.

Senator GARDINER:

– It is quite true that there are occasions on which I am not here.. Will the honorable senator give me the information now?

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– I prefer to give it in such a way that it will go into the records of the Senate.

Senator GARDINER:

– I should very much like to use the Ministerial figures. The information at my disposal, when I gave notice of the question, was that the ‘Commonwealth Bank, in conjunction with Messrs. Kirkpatrick and ‘Son, had built over 700 houses, and that the Wax Service Homes Commission had not built fifty. Those were the statements that induced me to ask the Minister for official information. If the proportion I have given is anything like correct, seeing that the private architects have gone out of the business, and the whole matter is to be left in the hands of the War Service Homes Commission, I can see a very considerable go-slow process ahead, so far as the Government and the Commission are concerned. If it is a fact that the arrangement with the Commonwealth Bank resulted in the doing of almost everything that has been done for the soldiers, and that the Commission, which got all the praise from the Minister, has done only the minor part, that fact should be emphasized. I admit unreservedly that I do not know whether those figures are accurate; they were so startling that I took the method I usually take, of seeking for official information before I used them. If they are correct, the Commission has not done the country that service which one would be led to believe by the very fine picture painted by the Minister in moving the second reading of this Bill.

Had I spoken on the second reading, I would have referred to the question of the returned soldiers being permitted to sell their houses. When the Minister was speaking, I interjected on that point, and the honorable senator very properly appreciated the fact, that if the houses were Bringing £200 more than they cost, it was very high praise for the War Service Homes’ Commission, or whoever built them. The Minister, however, seemed inclined to stop the system of private sale. I submit that it should not be stopped. So far as the men are concerned, the houses are theirs; they foot the bill, and pay for them, and they should be permitted to get what they can for them.

Senator Duncan:

– That is what the profiteer says.

Senator GARDINER:

– The profiteer knows a good deal more than I do regarding business deals. If I am shown a good sound business deal, I am prepared to follow the advice of the man who understands business, whether he is a profiteer, or a red ragger like Senator Duncan.

The Commonwealth has taken advantage of the feeling in the community to introduce a system of building houses for returned’ soldiers, and that system has hardly been started before it is discovered that a soldier can make £100 or £200 by merely selling his house. Why should we prevent him? Many of these men were outside Australia for four years. The amount of remuneration they were given for their services abroad waa not at all commensurate with the amount received by those who remained in Australia. The opportunities to make many hundreds of pounds never came to them. If a returned soldier has a chance of making a few hundred pounds hy selling his house, permission should not be withheld. He has a perfect right to make the profit. I remember that a few years ago in this country,- before the elaborate machinery was introduced for making bricks, they could be purchased at 30s. per 1,000 at the kiln, and it cost only about 4s. per 1,000 for delivery. You have to paynow in Sydney about. £5 per 1,000, while faced bricks run as high as £6 or £7.

Senator PRATTEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · NAT

– Ordinary bricks are much less than that.

Senator GARDINER:

– Ordinary bricks are from 94s. to 100s., according to the place of delivery.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– Surely the honorable senator is mistaken?

Senator GARDINER:

– No.

Senator PRATTEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · NAT

– How much are they at the kiln?

Senator GARDINER:

– I should say about £2 14s. I have seen bricks delivered at Bondi at from 94s. for plain, to 127s. for faced. These men are buying their houses when the cost of material is very high. The War Service Homes Commission is able to supply materials at much cheaper rates, but their rates are not cheap compared with the old time prices. They have made an excellent bargain in Queensland pine, which they are getting at £2 per 100 feet, but a few years ago the same timber could be got for from 16s. to £1 per 100 feet. If these men buy their houses when the cost of bricks, timber, cement, glass and other materials is high, and they can sell out to advantage, they should have the right to sell. If the Government tell them that they ‘ cannot sell, then, if the cost of building later on falls by about £100 per house, and a home which cost £800 now will bring only £700, it will be the duty of the Government to refund that £100 to the soldier. That is quite logical. If we will not let him take advantage of the market value, then, if the value of property depreciates because of the cheaper conditions which may obtain - and I am still hopeful that costs will fall, because the present inflated prices cannot last - and he finds in five years’ time that the house for which he paid £800 can be built for £600 or £700, we should let him off a proportionate amount of the purchase money.

These houses were built for the men, and we are not making an extraordinary concession to the returned soldiers who are occupying them. The difference between the concession made by the Government and that which would be made by an ordinary business firm or a banking institution is not very great. The War Service Homes Commissioner certainly possesses an advantage, because of the magnitude of the operations, which enables him to purchase enormous quantities of material and of necessary supplies. The system of building in groups, which enables a gang of men taking out foundations on one block to go on to the next when their work is completed, must certainly reduce the expenditure, and, generally speaking, the construction of houses in groups must tend to economy. But surely the Government can say to the men who have rendered good service- that if they are dissatisfied with the proposition, and if they are in a position to make £100 or £200 on their bargain, they should be allowed to do so. We are saying broadly that they are to be tied down, and that they are to hold their property, although they have an opportunity of selling at an advantage. The selling of property is one of the most prosperous businesses in Sydney at the present time. The men who are in possession of houses are under a liability to repay the amount advanced over a period of thirty or thirty-five years at the rate of so much per week. A man starts out with the intention of meeting his obligations, but finds after a time that the locality is unsuitable, and the place that he has purchased is nob convenient, because his employment takes him to some other centre. I am quite aware (that he can dispose of his property to the Commissioner under the agreement, but not at a profit. Is it fair to say to a man who desires to dispose of his house ‘that, although he can make £100 or £200, he is not to be allowed to do so ? That is absolutely unfair to men who have lost years of profitable enterprise in the service of the country, and who may have made a mistake in the selection of a site. We should take a wider view.

I know there has been trafficking in houses, and that it will be very difficult to prevent it. The Government have tried to prevent trafficking in war gratuity bonds, but at the present time advertisements are being inserted in the Sydney Daily Telegraph and Sydney Morning Herald by persons desirous of selling and by persons who are anxious to buy, notwithstanding the restrictions the Government have imposed.

Senator Duncan:

– You would give the same consideration to returned soldiers as you would to anybody else.

Senator GARDINER:

– The purchaser of the property signs the agreement and the house becomes his own- if he meets his obligations; it is really a matter of control. The house belongs to the soldier and he takes the responsibility, whilst the Government have the house as security. I believe there will be a little trafficking, but I do not think it will be extensive, and an opportunity should be given to the soldiers who desire, for good reasons, to sell to do so.

Senator PRATTEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · NAT

– Cannot the purchaser do what he likes with the property when he has paid, for it?

Senator GARDINER:

– It is evident that the business brain of Senator Pratten can see a way out. I believe that when a sale is made for cash the soldier .can do what he likes.

Senator PRATTEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · NAT

– Not under this measure.

Senator GARDINER:

– The only person who can be prevented from selling outside the Department is the one who has not the cash.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– The honorable senator is misinterpreting Senator Pratten’s interjection, and is wrong in what he is now saying.

Senator GARDINER:

– Cannot a man sell if he has purchased a house?

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– He cannot complete a purchase and make a transfer under five years.

Senator GARDINER:

– Then he has to hold the property for five years; that makes a difference. As far as these houses are concerned, we should have taken a broader view of the matter. It is a man’s own business, and if he has once disposed of his property he cannot secure another through the Commissioner. In many cases, a man has been supplied with a home, and when he sees that it is to his advantage to dispose of it, and he can do so at an enhanced price, he should be given that opportunity. I see no reason why that privilege should not be extended to the soldiers, particularly as the Minister for Repatriation (Senator Millen) has said that in some instances they would be able to make from £100 to £200 on their bargain. I am glad to hear that such is the case, and I agree with what the Minister has said; and it speaks well for the houses built by the Department. I still think, however, that we should treat the soldier more justly - I will not say more generously - because it is merely a matter of advancing money on which interest has to be paid, and for which the Government have full security. The purchaser has to meet his liabilities, and according to the statement of the Minister for Repatriation, the men are making their repayments in a satisfactory manner.

I merely rose to emphasize the fact that the returned soldier who receives a house should be at liberty to dispose of it. provided he has met his obligations. I think it is a great mistake to in any way restrict the men from selling when the property they are occupying is unsuitable, and there is an opportunity of making a profit. There may be a time when a buyer requires a property in a particular locality, and a delay of a week or two would prevent the seller from making a good profit. I am not at all in agreement with the proposition that ex-soldiers should be in a different position to others. We are establishing a principle that may yet operate against us, because the houses that are now being built at a high cost may in a few years’ time depreciate to the extent of 10, 20, or even 30 per cent., when the occupant will be the sufferer. A person may desire to sell at a profit, and it is quite possible that in a year or two he may be able to build an equally suitable home at a cheaper price; that is a question that must be considered by the Government. My chief purpose in speaking on this occasion was to emphasize the fact that the Commonwealth Bank, in conjunction with Kirkpatrick and Son, has built 700 homes, whilst the War Service Homes Commissioner has constructed only fifty. If that is not the position, I should like to know to what extent I am incorrect.

Senator E D MILLEN:
Minister for Repatriation · NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– I take the opportunity of making a few remarks regarding the statements that have been made on the third reading of this measure. In the first place, I quite recognise that Senator Keating was moving in a good cause, and he had no desire to make any statements which could be interpreted to reflect on myself.With due deference to the honorable senator, he did say that if I looked into the matter he felt sure that my sympathy would be the means of bringing about some reform. There is no need for any reform, because the Department under my administration has in its employ returned soldiers, and there is no need for the assumption that sympathy does not exist. I have already informed the House that 90 per cent. of the men in the Repatriation Department are soldiers, and that there is an even higher percentage in the War Service Homes Department. I regret that Senator Keating did not bring the matter under my notice instead of that of the Prime Minister (Mr. Hughes). Had Senator Keating come to me, I would havebeen able to give him information which the Prime Minister could not give.

Senator Keating:

– I went to the Prime Minister as Attorney-General, and not merely in connexion with this particular Department.

Senator MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– The AttorneyGeneral’s office could not know what was going on.

Senator Keating:

– I only recently learned that from Sir Robert Garran.

Senator MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– A proportion of the work was allotted to the Commonwealth Bank, and the Bank employed whatever legal practitioners it liked. But that agreement has gone, and the work now falls on the War Service Homes Commissioner. The question of the employment of architects, as well as legal practitioners, arises in connexion with giving the work to returned soldiers or outsiders. Every returned soldier solicitor or architect seems to think that he has the right to some portion of the work being carried out by the War Service Homes Commissioner; but the Commissioner finds that, instead of giving the work to outsiders he can, by keeping permanent officials on his staff, do it much cheaper, and he is doing so. On the second reading of the Bill I intimated that I could not hold out much hope to architects in private practice that they would get any considerable share of this work, since the Commissioner, with his own officers, is carrying it out at a figure for which no private architect would undertake it. The’ same thing applies to the employment of lawyers. Senator Keating is necessarily more familiar than I am with the work of lawyers, but looking into titles is largely routine work and it can be done by an officer of the Commissioner’s staff at much less cost to the soldier than by the employment of an outside legal firm.

Senator Keating:

– I understand that outside firms in Tasmania do get this work.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– Outside firms did get the work through the Commonwealth Bank, or before the arrangement to which I referred was made. Honorable senators know the practice which has been adopted, that if a Commonwealth Department required legal work done it went to the Crown Solicitor; if a Department required works to be carried out it went to the Works Department, and if it desired to lease premises it called upon the Department dealing with that special matter. The War Service Homes Commissioner commenced his operations by giving effect to that policy, but after consultation with the Crown Solicitor’s Department the Crown Solicitor agreed to the policy which the War Service Homes Commissioner has now adopted, on the ground that it would be more economical and more convenient to the Crown Solicitor’s Department. There is necessarily a transition period when changes of this character are made.

Senator Keating:

– That: is why I went to the Attorney-General in the first instance, instead of to the Minister for Repatriation, and I learned that legal work was given to an outsider.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– The honorable senator is quite right. Where the Crown Solicitor had not a branch office in any State some local legal firm was appointed to act as his agent. That arrangement was made prior to the war, andI suppose that the Crown Solicitor felt some difficulty or disinclination in breaking a relationship with a firm that had been acting for him for some time.

Senator Foll spoke of priority in dealing with applications, and suggested that men who returned later should, in some manner or other, be placed over the heads of those who returned earlier. The proposition stated in that way would make it appear that some men who were away for four or five years at the Front had, by reason of their greater length of service, rendered more service to the country. But it is necessary to recollect that many of the men who came home earlier did so because they were wounded, and many of the men having long service, fortunately, escaped the disabilities of war.

Senator Foll:

– I did not ask that those who came home later should be placed over the heads of those who came home earlier, but upon an equal footing. There is a great deal of difference between the two statements.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– The honorable senator should recollect that if any attempt were made to give priority to men on the ground of the merit of the service they rendered, that system would not be in force for a week before some one would raise the question of favoritism and partiality in dealing with certain cases.

Senator Wilson:

– Some of the men who returned early were sent back.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– All who were fit were sent back, but for different reasons. I wish Senator Foll, and honorable senators generally, to recognise that . unless in dealing with this matter some broad principle is adopted, sooner or later some man will complain that the application of another person was dealt with before his when it ought not to have been, and a charge of favoritism will be made against the Department.

Senator Foll:

– Why not allot the houses by ballot in the same way that land for settlement is balloted for ?

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– That would not always be possible.

Senator Wilson:

– Nor desirable at all.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– I would not discard the suggestion without further consideration, but it seems to me that up to the present the Commissioner has adopted the only safe plan.

Senator Gardiner has complained about delay. Of course, there has been delay, and I have admitted that in the sense that the work has not proceeded as fast as we hoped it would. But what was the cause of the delay? If Senator Gardiner will find labour and material for us more quickly than we can get it to-day I can promise him that there will be no further delay in the construction of soldiers’ homes. The most serious delay experienced was due to strikes, but I did not hear Senator Gardiner denounce those responsible for them.

Senator Gardiner:

– They were the cause of very little delay in connexion with building.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– For months in this State building was absolutely held up. Not a brick could be made in any kilns here, because coal could not be secured for the purpose, as a result of the coal strike.

Senator Gardiner:

– The Government were responsible for that.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– Of course we are responsible for everything, according to the honorable senator.

Senator Gardiner:

– The Government have been deliberately forcing strikes for a good while.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– That is a wicked misrepresentation of the truth.

Senator Gardiner:

– ‘That is the honorable senator’s opinion, but it is not mine. I say that the Government have been deliberately forcing strikes.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– Whilst an exaggerated statement of that kind may be readily accepted by the audiences the honorable senator is in the habit of addressing, it will have no influence upon the Senate.

Senator Gardiner:

– Not upon the present Senate.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– I now come to the number of applications that have been met. I have reminded honorable senators that the men were returning in great numbers, and thousands of applications were piling up before the work of the Department could be properly started. In spite of the tremendous leeway so brought about, 40 per cent, of the applicants have been satisfied. That is not an achievement which suggests delay. It is, on the contrary, one that is highly creditable to the Department, and shows a record that can fairly challenge comparison with anything that private enterprise has done in this country.

I was very pleased to hear that Senator Gardiner approved of the new policy adopted by the Commissioner in taking steps to secure directly his own supplies of material. One of the chief difficulties with which the Department has been confronted has been the shortage of material as well as the shortage of labour. Steps are being taken to meet the difficulty in the supply of material, and honorable senators are no doubt aware that we have been endeavouring to train as many returned soldiers as possible in vocational training classes, and desire to employ as many of them as the unions will allow. That is a matter in connexion with which Senator Gardiner might use his sympathetic influence. We have tried in this way to increase the supply of labour ; but we have found that the Bricklayers Union in Sydney has declined to permit its members to work with these trainees. Senator Gardiner might use his influence to overcome that difficulty. We are trying to teach trades to as many of these returned men as possible, and the unions connected with some of the building trades have said that they will not allow their members to work with these boys, who might otherwise represent a valuable addition to the labour supply of the country.

Senator Gardiner:

– ‘Surely the honorable senator does not think that a tradesman who has served an apprenticeship for years in learning a trade is going to lose his position, and let any one come into the trade at a moment’s notice.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– I think that they should be prepared to give the returned soldier a fair chance.

Senator Gardiner:

– I do not wonder at tradesmen objecting to allow men who are not tradesmen to trespass on their rights.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– No one wants to trespass upon the rights of any tradesman.

Senator Gardiner:

– The tradesman puts a high value upon his years of service in apprenticeship to his trade.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– Some of them would appear to put a high value upon keeping other people out of their trade. I have stated the position with which we are confronted. We are endeavouring to increase the labour supply by training returned men in various trades, and what we are asking the unionists to do is not to give up their places to these trainees, but to permit them to work alongside of them as improvers, whilst we will see that they are given the standard wage of the trade in which they are employed. That is not asking too much of the trade unionists, and we shall continue the policy to which I have referred in spite of the difficulties created by the union I have mentioned. We are trying to secure material directly rather than through the ordinary channels, and following a similar policy, we have been endeavouring to increase the supply of available labour by the vocational training of returned soldiers. I think that no loyal man in this country could raise any objection to the policy that has been adopted. We can guarantee employment to every soldier trained in these trades for several years to come. We are not. training men merely to multiply the competitors of existing tradesmen, because we are, at the same time, creating more employment than can be handled by the men we are training.

SenatorGardiner. - The honorable senator has to properly understand that tradesmen who have served their time in accordance with the traditions of centuries, which they like to live up to, are very reluctant to lose any of their privileges. The honorable senator must understand that, and have sympathy with that feeling before he can expect to do any good with the tradesmen.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– I am pleased to be able to say that with the exception of two unions the whole of the trade unions of Australia have agreed to our system. That is the best answer to the honorable senator.

Senator Gardiner:

– It also shows how generously the unions have met the Department. A tradesman who has served his time is asked to give up much when he is asked to let men come into the trade who are only handy men.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– The returned soldier trainee does not come into the trade as a handy man, and remain there. We recognise that he is not fully trained, and so we ask that he should be employed as an improver, although he is paid the full standard wages of the trade in which he is engaged. The employer pays wages in accordance with the value of the trainee’s services, which are assessed by a body on which there are three unionists and three employers, and the Department makes up the difference between the value at which the trainee’s services are assessed and the standard wage in the trade. Every three months the value of the trainee’s services are re-assessed, and as time goes on the employer will pay more, and the Department less, for his services. It is not asking too much of the unionists of Australia to subscribe to a system of that kind..

I come now to Senator Gardiner’s inspired attempt to show that the Commonwealth Bank has done infinitely better than theHousing Commissioner. I suggest to those with whom Senator Gardiner has been in communication on this subject that they should not press their contention too far. I told the Senate frankly that the figures I gave indicated the work of construction done by both the Housing Commissioner and the Commonwealth Bank. The fact that the Bank, acting under the Commissioner, turned out some of the work, did not affect the result in any way. It was quite a natural thing, in starting, that the Commonwealth Bank should erect houses more rapidly than the Commissioner was able to do, and for this reason: The original plan was that the Commonwealth Bank should deal with individual applications. All that the Bank had to do was to get out its plans and invite tenders. Tenders were secured and houses were built rapidly, whilst the Commissioner was organizing his group system and his supplies. That took some time. That time was not lost,’ however, and the policy adopted by the Commissioner ip justified by the position of affairs to-day. Senator Gardiner said that the War Service Homes Commissioner had constructed fifty houses. That was, for the honorable senator, a marvellous approximation to the truth. The actual number erected!, according to the returns, is 239, and when Senator Gardiner gave the number as fifty, that is perhaps as near as we could expect the honorable senator to get to the facts. The answer which I should have given to his questions, if he had been in his place to ask them, would have been that the number of houses built and’ completed by the Commission up to -31st July,. 1920,’ was 239, that in addition 1,856 houses were in course of construction and nearing completion, and that tenders had been received for a further 149 dwellings.

Senator Gardiner:

– How many were built by Kirkpatrick ?

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– I cannot say. I do not know anything about him.

Senator Gardiner:

– Then how many were built by the Commonwealth. Bank?

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– The honorable senator did not ask for those figures. If he means to suggest that the Commonwealth Bank built more houses than were built by the Commissioner, I have already admitted that it did.

Senator Gardiner:

– I only want the facts; and if the honorable senator does not give them, I must assume that it is because he is afraid to give them.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– The honorable senator will get them in that form if he asks for them. If Senator Gardiner’s point is that up to that date the Bank has erected more houses than has the Commissioner, I say “ Yes,” and I have given the reason why it has done so. That reason is that whilst the Bank was getting every tenderer in almost every suburb to build, the Commissioner was ignoring that temporary means of speeding-up in order that he might make his plans for’ group settlement and for the acquisition of supplies of material and have a definite assurance that when once he began work he would be able to proceed more rapidly than the Bank could hope to do. If Senator Gardiner has the time- at hia disposal I can show him where the

Commissioner is to-day laying out garden suburbs in a manner- which the Bank has never approached. Further, I would rer mind him that there has not been a, single house erected by the Commissioner which will not pass muster ; but I am sorry that I cannot say the same thing with regard to every house which has been erected by the Bank under, the supervision of Messrs. Kirkpatrick and Son.

I come now to the question of trafficking in these homes of which Senator Gardiner spoke. Need I remind him that thi3 Bill is not one to authorize an advance to a soldier applicant of £700 or £800 to enable him to build a house and to- turn it over at perhaps £1,000. It is designed to provide him with a home. If we are going to permit trafficking in these homes, the best thing we can do is to instruct the Commissioner to build them and to sell them whenever the opportunity offers of doing so at a profit, and to distribute his profits amongst our soldiers. Why, if it were known that a soldier who gets a home erected at £700 would be free to sell it at £800, every soldier would be. an applicant for one. It is impossible for all applications to be satisfied at once. I have made the same statement upon a previous occasion. There is neither the labour nor the material available to permit of that being done. It is not the purpose of this Bill to give a soldier applicant a chance in a lucky-bag or- to build houses for civilians. I am glad that the Senate has indorsed the view that, short of any injustice or loss to the soldier himself, it will not encourage trafficking in these homes. Senator Gardiner has stated that we have sold the houses to the soldiers. But he must not overlook the fact that we have not sold them at a profit.

Senator Gardiner:

– There is no loss upon them.

Senator E D MILLEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · FT; ANTI-SOC from 1910; LP from 1913; NAT from 1917

– There is a loss. The. Commonwealth is paying 6 per cent, interest upon loan moneys raised for the purpose of erecting these homes, and against that it is only charging the soldiers interest at the rate of 5 per cent. In addition to that we are not loading them with any administrative expenses. We have the right, therefore, to ask that the money in respect of which the Commonwealth penalizes itself shall be devoted, not to enabling soldiers to traffic in these homes,but to obtain homes of their own. When the principal Act was placed upon our statute-book Australia recognised that her obligation was ho provide for a diminution in the rate of interest charged to the soldier, and also to free him from any of the administrative costs of the Department. I think that I have now touched upon all the points which have been raised during this discussion, and I am encouraged to believe that, speaking generally, the Senate is not dissatisfied with the work which the Department has accomplished.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a third time.

page 4011

INDUSTRIAL PEACE BILL

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 27th August (vide page 3930), on motion by Senator Russell -

That this Billbe now read a second time.

Senator DUNCAN:
New South Wales

– In addressing myself to this measure I agree with those honorable senators who have declared that it constitutes an honest attempt to do something towards achieving a solution of the eternal labour problem. But I would point out that the Bill itself does not provide a solution of that problem. So long as we have social injustices, so long shall we have social problems, and this Bill does not pretend to remove the basic reasons for social injustice. To that extent, therefore, it must fail in solving the labour problem, and in abolishing the recurrent strikes to which this unfortunate country is subjected. I recognise that the problem of the effective maintenance of the application of labour to production is one of the greatest with which we are confronted. All our future progress, and even the maintenance of our national existence, depend largely upon the degree to which we can solve this problem. I realize that nothing is more ruinous to industry than the recurrent strikes to which we are subjected. It must be obvious to every honorable senator that if this country is to advance it must have something in the nature of settled conditions; otherwise it will be impossible for us to make satisfactory national progress. This is a truth which is recognised by all sections of our political community. Quite apart from their general effect upon industry, and the retardation that they exercise upon progress and development generally, strikes engender a degree of bitterness in the community which continues long after the cause of the upheaval has been forgotten. This bitterness is a constant irritant and a fresh cause for industrial trouble in the future. We have seen examples of this time and again in our industrial and national history. When a big strike occurs, let us assume that the men are defeated. No matter what may have been the real cause of that strike their defeat is sufficient to maintain in their minds a rankled feeling that sooner or later will result in a fresh outburst against their employers or the community generally. “Upon the other hand, if the employers are defeated, they feel that they have been defeated, not because the cause of the men was a just one, “but because the men were better organized than themselves, and because they seized upon a more opportune time to make their bid for victory. Consequently, they retain a feeling which rankles in their minds for years, with the result that sooner or later they, too, will attempt to get back that which has been taken from them, not by the force of reasons but by the force of circumstances and of numbers. Here, then, is a continuous irritant in our industrial community and something which we should at all times endeavour to prevent.

I believe that in this Bill an attempt has been made to at least devise some means whereby this source of irritation and the constant industrial troubles that arise in this community between employers and employees, may be satisfactorily settled. Senator Pratten has pointed out that the measure represents a compromise, and that as such it cannot be altered in any of its underlying principles. To a very large extent that is so. Here I desire to pay my meed of praise to the Opposition in another place, who, by reason of the splendid way in which they co-operated with the Government to make this Bill what it is to-day, showed that when the necessity demands it they can rise much higher than party considerations in the interests of the general community.

Senator NEWLANDS:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP; NAT from 1917

– They all voted against it.

Senator DUNCAN:

– But nevertheless the splendid way in which certain members’ of that party suggested improvements in the measure is worthy of commendation.

Senator PRATTEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · NAT

– And the Government accepted many amendments in Committee.

Senator DUNCAN:

– The way in which the Government accepted the suggestions made by their opponents and acceded to many requests, which at first blush seemed to be opposed to the policy of. certain of their supporters, is also worthy of .commendation.

For the reasons which I have urged, and for others which have been urged by Senator Pratten, we are, to a large extent, tied to this measure. But while the Bill is a compromise it is merely a compromise between political parties, not one of which can claim to speak with any great degree of responsibility for the big industrial organizations to which we must look for the success or otherwise of its operation. Neither the party which is behind the Government, nor that which is behind Senator Gardiner, can claim to speak with any great degree of authority for those organizations which will be expected to observe its provisions. There is in the ranks of those bodies a certain schism, which seems to have rent into two distinct sections the whole industrial fabric from the stand-point of the Labour party. There is one section which believes in industrial arbitration and another section which does not. The latter pins its faith solely to the weapon of the strike. This is the section which believes in the principle of the One Big Union. It is a fact that the ideal of the One Big Union is one which has made a considerable amount of progress amongst industrialists, and one which is causing deep concern to those men who, while they may be opposed to the Government, entertain an earnest desire to see the right thing done in this country. One of the very first things which we must have if we are to make any arbitration measure a success is a general recognition and acceptation of the principle of arbitration. If, on the one hand, we are to have a few, or even a number of, industrial organizations accepting it, and, on the other hand, a number of them refusing to accept it, except when it may suit them to do so, and, generally speaking, announcing their hostility to arbitration as a method of settling industrial disputes - losing no opportunity of belittling that system and the results which may be obtained under it - then I confidently assert that we can, by means of arbitration, have no successful remedying of our industrial troubles, and no warrant whatever for believing that this or any other measure which may be brought forward will abolish the recurring strikes to which we are subjected.

We have now two sections in the trade union movement. I claim to know something about this subject, because I was proud for years to be associated with the movement, and am, to a certain extent, associated with it to-day. I am a member of my trade union, and concern myself with the welfare of the organization. I wish at all times to see the members of that and all other organizations working under the very best conditions that it is possible to obtain. We have, then, two sections of the trade union movement, comprising those who ‘ believe in craft organization or craft unionism, and those who believe, not in craft unionism, but in industrial unionism. The old craft unions, to which the trade union movement as it exists to-day owed everything, concerned themselves mainly with the hours of labour, the conditions of employment, and the general betterment of the conditions under which their members were employed. They were satisfied to work under what has become known as the capitalistic system. They had no very great objection to it as a system( but they were concerned to see that their hours of labour were shortened, their wages increased, and their other conditions of employment bettered so far as it was possible for them to do so. But the new ideal which has grown up in the industrial movement is against the ideal of the craft unions. To-day, as against the old beliefs of craft unionism and the acceptation by the craft unions of the principle of capitalism, we find new industrial organizations opposed root and branch to the capitalistic system and declaring that we can have no industrial salvation until it is overthrown. That is the new ideal held by what are known as the industrial organizations as against the craft organizations. How is it possible for us as a Parliament, or for the community in general, to make any provisions whatever for organizations such as these, that are opposed root and branch to the existing system, and opposed also to everything in the nature of a remedy. or a partial remedy, for the social injustices that obtain to-day. Many of the leaders of this new thought in the industrial world do not like to see those injustices got over. I have heard many of them declare that they would like to see such a condition of affairs obtaining in this country that the workers from one end of it to the other would rise in revolution against the present system, and against those whom they call the capitalists, and overthrow, them. They declare that measures such as that we are now asked to pass will only prolong the present condition of affairs, and so- they offer no apology for opposing them. We must all realize, and. I hope we do realize, however, that the opinions of these men are not those of the general community. They are not the opinions of the majority of the trade unions or the trade unionists. It is to the honest and sensible trade unionist that we are looking for the success of this measure, and it is for his interests that’ I hope we are legislating.

Senator MILLEN:
TASMANIA · NAT; UAP from 1931

– And the interests of the public.

Senator DUNCAN:

– And of the public also.

There is one very important point which appeals strongly to me, and must appeal to other honorable senators, in connexion with the trade union movement as it exists to-day. Whereas, under the old conditions a trade union was a trade union and nothing else. concerning itself only with trade union matters, the present day trade union organization, whether it be a craft or industrial organization, is not so much a trade union as it is a political body, animated by political ideals, and standing for political purposes. That this is so is an obvious truth. We see these trade unions linked together, and exercising their powers for political purposes. Their funds are subscribed, not only by the supporters of one political party, but by supporters of all) political parties; but we see them expending those funds not for industrial, but for political purposes. We find them issuing dodgers such as I have here. This is a circular issued by the Printing Industries Employees Union of Australia, over the signature of E. C. McGrath, Secretary. It relates to the election of officers. Union rule No. 6 is quoted as follows: - “ No officer or member of the executive or council of the u u ion shall in any manner identify himself with any political body which is opposed to the platforms of the State or Federal Labour parties.” Then the following is the form of declaration which has to be signed by all aspirants for office : “ Having nominated for ‘ such and such an office’ in the .New South Wales Branch, and perused the foregoing rules, I declare that I am not* in any manner identified with any political body which is opposed to the platform of the State or Federal Labour parties, being a supporter of labour in politics.” This proves that these bodies are not so much trade unions as political organizations, out for certain political ends, and intending to support only one political party. They bind and force their members to take a certain political line of thought or action, whether they like it or not. These are the bodies that used to boast of freedom. The very trade union movement came into being to secure for the workers the right to organize, in order that each man might have his own views upon certain matters, and have as much individual liberty as it was possible for him’ to have, conforming, of course, all the time to the genera] needs of the organization with which he was associated. What these organizations aim at now is the very thing that trade unions were formed to fight. To-day they are perpetuating this, sin against the liberty of thought and conscience of every man by declaring that, whether he likes it or not, he shall continue to pay into the funds of his organization - because they stand out for the principle of preference to unionists - and that if he does not pay they will sue him and the Courts will make him pay. A certain proportion of what he pays goes into the funds of a political organization with which he is not in sympathy, and which is> opposed to ideals which he holds dear.

But the point which I want honorable senators to note is that, because trade unions to-day are - not concerned purely with, industrial purposes, but are really political organizations, those industrial disputes which do -not arise from conditions in an industry,, but are engineered for political reasons, cannot be settled by this or any other measure. Industrial disputes undoubtedly are made use of for political purposes. A few years ago there was, in New South Wales, a strike in connexion with the railway and tramway industry. Nominally it was a strike over the card system of keeping the records of the men at the tramway workshops. Actually, it was a political strike against the Government of the day. It was a deliberate attempt to do by means of industrial action what they could not do by means of the ballot box. No Bill whatever would have prevented those men from doing what they did if they believed that it was possible to bring off the coup which they attempted. A few weeks ago the Sydney Labour Council, one of the representative bodies of trade unionism in New South Wales, which has affiliated with it about 160 organizations, departed altogether from ordinary trade union and industrial affairs, and carried a resolution in connexion with the deportation of Father Jerger and others, threatening certain industrial action unless deportations were stopped. The maritime organization, consisting of trade unionists, intruded into what was really a political, and not an industrial, affair at all, by taking a certain stand and ceasing work because of that incident. Here, then, we find trade unionists hurling themselves into industrial disputes over matters which are not industrial at all, and which cannot come under the purview of this or any other Act. That being so, I despair of any Bill, however cleverly drafted, being able to obviate many of the industrial situations that will arise in the future, because I believe that most of those industrial situations which are likely to go to the length of a great strike will be connected with political questions and designed for political purposes, and not with industrial matters at all. But whilst this Bill for those reasons is not an entire solution of the problem, I believe’ it will do a very great deal, and is well worth while.

I agree with ‘those honorable senators who have declared that we may expect great results from the Bill, but the big question arises of just how far it can go in the direction that we desire, while still keeping within the four corners of the Constitution. Yesterday a fresh interpretation of the Constitution in certain aspects was given by the High Court. It upsets previous interpretations, and I venture to say that no man concerned with industrial affairs to-day, no trade union leader or employer of labour, actually knows just where he is, or where he is likely to be, in the event of changes taking place upon the High Court bench. If we are to have one decision to-day, another to-morrow, and another next week, it is impossible for us to have anything in the nature of settled conditions so far as regards judicial decisions. The Government, in framing this measure, have themselves foreseen difficulties so far as the constitutional aspect of it is concerned. In sub-clause 2 of clause 2 it is provided as follows : -

This Act shall he read and construed subject to the Constitution, and so ns not to exceed the legislative power of the Common-, wealth, to the intent that where any enactment thereof would, but for this section, have been construed as being in excess of that power, it shall nevertheless be a valid enactment to the extent to which it is not in excess of that power.

Senator Keating:

– What does that mean?

Senator DUNCAN:

– I do not profess to know; but it is evident that the Government anticipate constitutional trouble in connexion with this measure. It is apparent that they do not know how far they can go, and whether action taken under this measure will be constitutional or not. That being so, they have inserted something in the shape of a saving clause which will perhaps enable portions of certain decisions to be declared legal, whilst others may be unconstitutional. Whilst the position in which we find ourselves is a serious one, it must, in all fairness to the Government, be said that they are not responsible. Before last elections the Government attempted to secure amendments to the Constitution to enable them to pass into law a Bill such ‘.as we have before us, so that when once such measures had passed the Legislature and received the Royal assent there would -not be anything in the Constitution or elsewhere to give rise to legal quibbling as to whether they were constitutional or not.

Senator PRATTEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · NAT

– What would be the good of altering the Constitution to pass laws that would not be observed.

Senator DUNCAN:

– I cannot answer that question offhand; it is too big a problem for me. If that is the opinion held by Senator Pratten, I ask him what is the good of passing any law, because all laws are broken?We might as well declare that murder was not an offence, because, although we have laws which endeavour to prevent it, murders still occur.

I desire to refer now to what is necessary in any measure designed to prevent or settle industrial disputes and to compare what I consider the essential provisions of the present measure with the position which confronts us. In a Bill such as this, relating to industrial matters and the prevention and settlement of industrial disputes, we must have Tribunals in which the organizations concerned will have the most complete confidence. I do not believe it is possible for us, under the Constitution as it is, to do all that is necessary. I was pointing out, when Senator Pratten interjected, that it was not the fault of the Government but of those who were opposed to the Government, more particularly those in the ranks of the Labour party, that the Constitution was not amended when the question was submitted to the people at the last Federal elections. Although the general attitude of the Labour party was that of opposition to the referendum proposals, I am well aware that certain members of that party advised their supporters to vote for the amendment of the Constitution; but, on the other hand, many of the leaders of the Labour party urged the electors to vote against it. It is because of that advice that we are in our present unfortunate position. It is impossible for us to provide a Tribunal in which the organizations will have complete confidence, because they do not know in which way the High Court is likely to deal with an award and whether it will rule that it is constitutional or not. They can be quite sure that whatever the decision is there will be trouble, considerable argument, and very heavy legal expenses.

There must also be every facility for organizations to approach the Tribunal, and I submit that under this measure this is notclear. We find in clause 27 the following: -

  1. When an alleged industrial dispute isreferred to a Special Tribunal or a Local Board any party to the proceeding may apply to the High Court for a decision on the question whether the dispute or any part thereof exists, or is threatened or impending or probable, as an industrial dispute extending beyond the limits of any one State….

When an alleged dispute is referred to a Special Tribunal or Local Board any party to the proceedings may apply to the High. Court for a decision as to whether a dispute or any part thereof exists. . I submit there has never been a dispute some aspects of which might not have been referred to the High Court, but it seemsthat before this measure can operate at all to prevent disputes, we are going to have long legal arguments before the High Court, and full dress debates by lawyers, involving high costs against the organizations or against the employers.

Senator PRATTEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · NAT

– The honorable senator is overlooking the fact thatprovision may be made in the new Arbitration Bill which is now before another Chamber.

Senator DUNCAN:

– I am not going to suppose that there is anything in any other measure which will controvert something in this Bill. The measure before us will involve endless litigation before the High Court, before the provision for maintaining industrial peace will come into operation.

Senator Benny:

– This will be the means of preventing a dispute before it arises.

Senator DUNCAN:

– Only if the High Court gives the power.

Senator Benny:

– That is not so.

Senator DUNCAN:

– Clause 27 provides that if a dispute is referred to a Special Tribunal or Local Board, which are two subsidiary bodies, either party may go to the High Court to argue the point as to whether a dispute does or does not exist.

Senator Russell:

– There are not two subsidiary bodies.

Senator DUNCAN:

– A Special Tribunal or Local Boardmay deal with the question, and it will be optional for the employers or an organization of employees to take the case to the High Court when it is before a Special Tribunal or Local Board.

Senator Russell:

– Trouble has been caused by delays. In connexion with mining, one organization may require a different specialist to deal with a case at Newcastle, and another to deal with a case at Broken Hill.

Senator DUNCAN:

– I quite agree with the intention of the Government, and I am in favour of the creation of Special Tribunals and Local Boards; but we ought to have something better than giving the High Court power to say whether a dispute exists or not. I remember questions of whether a dispute existed or not being argued for days before the High Court. It is not easy to prove that a dispute exists, and I am sure that what has occurred under other Acts will occur under this, when it becomes law. Unionists have to go on strike, or take such steps as will convince the Court that a strike is threatened, and when such action is taken it is almost impossible to drag the men back after once they have threatened to cease’ work. There should be some way of obviating the trouble of getting the Court to prove whether a dispute exists. If we cannot take away that power from the Court, we should hedge it around in such a way as to obviate delay.

Senator Russell:

– The Court can only determine whether it is an Inter-State dispute, as the balance of power has been taken from it.

Senator DUNCAN:

– The High Court has to come to a decision as to whether a dispute, or any part thereof, exists; and if I were in charge of an industrial organization, I would not like going to the High Court to get a decision on such a point. The High Court naturally wants to be sure that a dispute actually exists.

Senator Keating:

– It goes further than that.

Senator DUNCAN:

– It may be necessary, as it has been in the past, in certain circumstances that I know of, for an industrial organization to threaten to go on strike or to actually cease work, to convince the Court that a dispute exists. We are acting in exactly the same w.ay as we have been doing under the old Arbitration Act, and unionists will have to go on strike to prove that a dispute exists. The intention of the Government is, I believe, that any industrial body feeling that its members are working under an injustice shall be able to secure a r”edress of their grievances without going on strike or threatening to strike. We must provide a Tribunal in which the unions have confidence, and I do not think that we can. do that. There must be every facility to approach such a body, and at present that is not too clear. There must also be expedition in decisions, and, according to the wording of clause 27, I do not see how there is likely to be an expeditious handling of industrial cases. It should also be provided that costs should not be excessive, as it is unfair to saddle organizations with heavy legal expenses. I shall leave these points to my legal friends in the hope that they will be able to find some way out of what appears to be a great difficulty.

Honorable senators have raised certain points, and to one or two of these I wish to reply. It has been urged that provision should be made for the public to be represented on the different Tribunal? or Boards, and although that argument has been advanced by one or two honorable senators, I submit that what they suggest is not possible. After all, the public can be roughly divided into two sections, the employers and those who are employed, and most of us fall under one of the two heads. I submit that when employers and employees are represented on a Board presided over by an independent Chairman, we have not only the representatives of the two contesting parties, but we have in the Chairman of the Board a representative of the public. Surely the Chairman is there to represent public interests, and in all cases the Chairman’s decision will be guided by the necessities of the public. He will he in much the same position as a Judge, as he will have to weigh the evidence and come to a decision in favour of one section or the other. He will usually come to a decision after keeping fully in mind the public interests, so far as the principal matter under consideration1 is concerned. By having the public represented on the Boards it would mean either giving an additional vote to the employers or the employees, because the public representative would in all likelihood be either an employee or an employer. Naturally he would lean to that section of the community with which he was> particularly associated. I believe that under the present system ‘the chairman of a Wages Board does give to the people the desired representation.

The old argument has been used that the union secretary is a paid agitator, whose interests are best served by the promotion of industrial turmoil. Again, I do not believe that statement. I have known a great many union secretaries, I know many of them to-day, and I say that the average union secretary is concerned all the time about keeping the members of his organization, not in, but out of industrial turmoil. His object is to keep them at work. Most of the industrial organizations when on strike cut off the salary of their secretary. When a union is on strike, the secretary draws only strike pay, the same as the members of the union. Honorable senators will see that it is to his interest to keep his men at work, in order that funds may continue to come into the union. He wants to see the members of his union happy and contented. In all my experience of trade unions, I have not met one trade union secretary who could fairly be charged with fomenting industrial trouble. I could, on the other hand, mention dozens of instances where a trade union secretary has not only opposed the members of his union going out on strike, but where, by reason of his opposition, he has been actually successful in inducing them not to strike. If we have many strikes now, it is safe to say that we should have twenty or thirty times as many if the position were really as some honorable senators have suggested, and the union secretaries were the men who fomented trouble.

Senator Rowell:

– I do not think that any one said that it was the secretary who was responsible. The organizers are probably the responsible persons.

Senator DUNCAN:

– The statement was made that the union officials were responsible for fomenting industrial turmoil, and in most cases the secretary is the only official of an industrial union. There are some unions with ample funds that employ an organizer or two, and I admit that in those cases the position is not quite so clear. I could imagine, for instance, that in connexion with the Australian Workers Union it might forward the interests of an organizer perhaps, at times, to foment a little industrial trouble in certain sheds to show that he was doing something for the money he received. Generally speaking, a union secretary is an anti-strike man, and throws the whole of his influence against his union going on strike. Honorable senators will be aware that . the Judges of the Arbitration Court and the chairmen of Wages Boards have not* hesitated to pay their meed of praise, from time to time, to union secretaries for ‘the splendid assistance they have been able to give them.

I do not, at this stage, propose to say any more on this very important Bill. It proposes practically a method for arriving at agreements, and, so far as its principles are concerned, we can do very little with it by way of amendment. I felt that I could not permit the second reading of the measure to pass without saying a word or two on the important points with which I have thought it desirable to deal. If it is not possible for me to share the very rosy outlook of certain other honorable senators. I still hope that the Bill will be found to give us even half the results which they have looked for from it. If it does, its consideration will have been well worth while, and, in passing it, we shall have done a. very great service to the general community.

Senator FAIRBAIRN:
Victoria

– - I should like to congratulate Senator Duncan, who is one of our new bloods, on the very able and interesting speech .he has just made. It is well for the Senate that we should be in a position te- take advantage of the knowledge and experience of recruits from the Labour movement who have come amongst us. I believe that the views expressed by Senator Duncan should commend themselves to the Opposition in the Senate, as they certainly will to honorable senators supporting the Government. I find myself in complete agreement with Senator Duncan, when he says that he regards, it as a great hardship that the funds which a member of an industrial union contributes should be used on occasion to support political views which he cannot indorse, I suppose that our union friends will contend that the majority must rule, and the funds subscribed by members of a union are properly expended in giving effect to the desires of the majority. In spite of this it does seem hard that a member of an industrial organization should be called upon to contribute funds which may be used to promote political opinions which he does not share.

One of my excuses for making a few remarks on this very important measure, is that I have been for thirty years engaged in organizing work, since an effort was first made to organize the Pastoralists Union. I regret to say that instead of achieving industrial peace we seem industrially to be as much at war now as we ever were. One wonders sometimes at the causes for industrial trouble. There have no doubt been changes in the structure and conditions of society. In the old days when England was called “ Merrie England” the cottage system of labour existed. As population increased and the needs of the community became greater the factory system was introduced. Under the old cottage system the employer, as we know him, scarcely existed. The men who did the tailoring and bootmaking for the community were practically their own employers. Under the new system there was found the large factory with a single employer, employing, it might be, thousands of hands. He was of necessity almost completely out of touch with the hands he employed. He did not understand their point of view, and, in fact, never thought of it. When he paid their wages he considered that’ his contract was ended. We have gone a long way beyond that, and to-day we all realize that the employer’s liability to his employees does not end when he pays them their weekly wages. We all recognise now that the employee has a right to live in decent comfort.

I commend the Government for introducing this measure, which represents an endeavour to bring about round-table conferences, and in some way to restore the conditions of the past, when employer and employee met face to face to discuss the affairs of the industry in which they were engaged. In this way we may possibly overcome many of the causes of irritation which result in strikes and industrial turmoil. The Bill represents an honest attempt to bring that about. Employers have always asserted that the Wages Board system, which is practically what is proposed by this Bill, is the proper system to adopt, because under it the real employer meets the real employee. Under that system, when an industrial dispute occurs, employers and employees who understand the business in connexion with which the dispute has arisen meet together. They start upon their conference a long way ahead of the Judge of. an Arbitration Court, whose mind has first to be informed as to the conditions of the industry with which he is called upon to deal, and we know that that takes a very long time. We have always contended that no individual, however wise and able he may be, can understand the ins and outs of the various industries carried on in a continent like Australia. We can only hope to take a step towards bringing about industrial peace if we can get the real employers to meet the real employees, and talk matters over with them face to face. Both sides in such a case will understand the conditions of the industry in which they are engaged’, and they will be able to find a basis for agreement much more readily than could a Judge of any Court.

Senator PRATTEN:
NEW SOUTH WALES · NAT

– They will be a council of specialists.

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

– That is so. I have fortunately not very often appeared in Court, but when I have been in Court, although I have at first been fairly friendly with the man on the other side, by the time the case has been brought to a conclusion I have been prepared to cut his throat with pleasure. I consider ‘that perhaps the next worst thing after going to war is to be a. party to an action in Court. I have always been biased against the Arbitration Court because of that feeling. A Court is not the place for conciliation. A man cannot become friendly with an opponent in the atmosphere of a Court. At a round-table conference one may learn his opponent’s views, and there are no lawyers stepping in to impute motives. I do not say that lawyers do this with any wrong desire. They do it with the desire to make the best of the case for their side; but they conduct a case in a way in which employers and employees meeting together would never think of conducting it.

I have said that society is always changing. The worker thirty years ago was in a helpless state, but he has since extended his unions, and the machinery for pro- . moting their interests in various directions, some parts of which I do not approve of, whilst I do very much approve of others. He is in quite a different position to-day to that in which he was thirty years ago.Some of the labour unions to-day are amongst the strongest organizations in the world.

We cannot expect always to have industrial peace, because the conditions of society are always changing. I was very much struck the other day on reading a cable setting out the views of a wellknown Socialist, Mrs. Snowden. She had been on a visit to Russia, and when she got back to England she expressed the opinion that England was far nearer to Socialism than Russia was. The lesson to be learned from that, in my opinion, is that you cannot have progress without education and civilization. The wretched people of Russia have never been given a fair opportunity to enable them to progress. I will say that under the late Czar steps were being taken to secure for them what they wanted. A Duma was elected, as we know; but later on there came the terrible revolution. That was followed by an autocracy which I venture to think was more cruel than the autocracy of the Czar. People who are uneducated cannot be governed except by an autocracy. The Russians now have an autocracy of the labouring classes, whereas they formerly were governed by an autocracy of the aristocratic class ; but there must be an autocratic Government for uneducated people. The only way in which they can look for a change in. their form of government is by education and civilization. One might as well argue with an animal as with a man who has not some degree of education. In my view, the only way to secure industrial peace is to level upwards and not downwards, and I have no doubt that the people of Russia will find that out in time.

There is one matter which until yesterday I did not know was dealt with in this Bill. I think that we should always very clearly define the respective spheres of action of Federal and State Boards., It was not exactly a dispute, because two parties came before the Federal Court, which laid down certain conditions of employment and prescribed the rate of wages which should be paid. Immediately the Queensland pastoralist employees applied to their Local Court and obtained another award. That is only one instance of many which I might cite. Thus we were continually in Court; a state of things which is not conducive to industrial peace.

By the decision of the High Court yesterday, under which State instrumentalities are made entirely subservient to Federal jurisdiction, it appears to me that all State awards will go by the board. Take the case to which I have already referred - that of the award obtained by the pastoralists in the Federal Arbitration Court which has been superseded by a State award in Queensland. As the Federal award must always override a State award, the decision of the State Tribunal will evidently be wiped out.

Senator Reid:

– Will the pastoralists get a refund of the money which they have paid?

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

– They cannot get blood out of a stone, but they are certainly entitled to a refund.

Senator Pearce:

– I scarcely think that the decision of the High Court yesterday affects that question.

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

– I am of opinion that it does. It will certainly have exceedingly far-reaching effects. If State instrumentalities are to be swept away-

Senator Pearce:

– Is not the effect of that judgment that where the Commonwealth before was held to have no power, it has now been held that it has power.

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

– Where a dispute extends beyond the limits of any one State the Federal Arbitration Court undoubtedly has power to arbitrate.

Senator Pearce:

– But the case before the High Court involved the question of whether the State was the employer.

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

– I know that the question before the Court was whether the State was the employer. But where a dispute arises and the Commonwealth haspower to deal with it, it will deal with it, and its award will knock out the decision of the State Arbitration Court. That is my own view of the matter without having consulted legal men upon it.

Senator de Largie:

– It is not a question of the area, but of one Government being pitted against another Government.

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

– Yes. We all know that under our Constitution, where a Federal law conflicts with a State law, the Federal law must prevail. Consequently, a State Court will have no jurisdiction in such Gases as I have mentioned.

If that beso, we ought certainly to define what are State and what are Federal functions. For disputes to be passing from one Court to another must necessarily involve aterrible waste of time. It would expedite the settlement of industrial disputes if we clearly defined what matters come within the scope of State, and what matters within the scope of Federal, jurisdiction.

Senator Pearce:

– The only way in which that point can be cleared up, other than by an amendment of our Constitution, is by getting the States to vest their powers in the Commonwealth Courts.

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

– Yes . If the decision given by the High Court yesterday does not clear up that point- -

Senator Reid:

– The pastoralists in Queensland should test the matter before the High Court.

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

– It is a point which will doubtlessly be looked into.

Under the Bill which we are now considering, it is proposed to constitute four new Tribunals. The Arbitration Court is to continue its existence subject only to such amendments as are at present being considered by another branch of the Legislature. But this Bill contemplates the appointment of four different Tribunals in addition to the Arbitration Court. There is to be, first, a Commonwealth Council of Industrial Representatives. Then there are to be District Councils, Special Tribunals, and Local Boards. I have read the measure very carefully, and I find it extremely difficult to understand what is the nature of the procedure which is to be adopted. When a dispute arises in any trade or occupation, or when it is threatened or impending, that dispute, I assume, will go before the Arbitration Court. Consequently this Bill will deal only with disputes in which the disputants refuse to go before that Tribunal. If, for example, the coal miners decline to go before the Arbitration Court, what will happen ? Will the Commonwealth Council deal with the dispute, or will the District Council, or the Special Tribunal, or the Local Board?

Senator MILLEN:
TASMANIA · NAT; UAP from 1931

– In my opinion, the honorable senator has put his finger upon the weak spot in the Bill.

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

– I am endeavouring to deal with the measure from a practical stand-point. It seems to me that the Special Tribunal will really be the superior Tribunal. Yet its members are not to be paid, as are the members of all the other Tribunals, who will be appointed to act until the GovernorGeneral directs that they shall cease to do so. I should like to know from the Minister (Senator Russell) whether the Commonwealth Council of Industrial Representatives will be a permanent body, or merely a temporary Council, which will be called into existence during the continuance of a dispute? Will it be a continuous body, or will a fresh body be created to deal with each dispute as it arises? There is no provision in the Bill for the payment either of travelling expenses or of salary to the members of a Special Tribunal. These bodies, I presume, will be of a temporary character. But, apparently, the others are designed to be permanent bodies. When a dispute arises, and the disputants refuse to submit their case to the Arbitration Court, will the Commonwealth Council of Industrial Representatives deal with it,or will the District Council or the Local Board ? It seems to me that the Commonwealth Council would be sufficient to deal with the whole of these matters so long as it had power to create different Boards.

Senator Reid:

– In reply to an interjection, the Minister in charge of the Bill implied that that was the intention.

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

– If that be so. what is the object of constituting all these other Tribunals? We do not wish to unnecessarily increase machinery. Owing to illness, I had not the opportunity of hearing the second-reading speech of the Minister upon this Bill, but it does seem to me that the Government contemplate creating far too many of these Councils. One of them, with power to constitute Local Boards for the purpose of dealing with different disputes, should be sufficient.

Senator Pearce:

– Is not that statement inconsistent with the point which the honorable senator made at the outset of his remarks, namely, that he preferred bodies of specialists to deal with disputes in any trade.

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

– The local bodies would attend to that matter.

Senator Pearce:

– That is the District Council, or Special Tribunal. The members of those organizations will not necessarily be permanent officers.

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

– There is just one other matter that I desire to bring under the notice of Senator Gardiner. Under the definition clause it is provided that - “ Organization,” in reference to employees, means an association of notless than one hundred employees engaged in any industrial pursuit or pursuits whatever, together with such other persons, whether employees engaged in any industrial pursuit or pursuits or not, as have been appointed officers of the association and admitted as members thereof.

There we provide for the introduction of the professional organizer. I was under the impression that the spirit underlying this measure was that ‘the real employer should be able to meet the real employee. Yet here I find a proposal to introduce the professional organizer, who will practically be a lawyer, and who will plead cases before these industrial Tribunals. My own opinion is that we are far more likely to arrive at a settlement of industrial disputes without the aid of such a man. I should like to hear what Senator Gardiner has to say upon that point.

Senator Pearce:

– How could we get the real employer to meet the real employee in the case of a company?

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

-The manager would be the real employer in the case of a company.

Senator Pearce:

– He would be a paid servant

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

– As a rule, only big strikes will be dealt with under this Bill, whilst all small disputes will go before the Arbitration Court.

Senator Foll:

– Only disputes which extendbeyond the limits of any one State can be dealt with under this Bill.

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

– Yes. But there are plenty of real employers outside of companies, and they ought to be able to meet the real employees in any industry.

Senator Keating:

– But we could not have all the employers meeting all the employees. We must have representative men.

Senator FAIRBAIRN:

– It would be necessary to pick certain men from the employees and the employers. That could be done by the Government. If we introduce the professional organizer, as this part of the Bill appears to contemplate, we shall get a different class of man altogether, open to the same objections as have been raised against the lawyers. I have heard it said, although I do not believe it, that lawyers sometimes prolong cases because the fees go on. In this instance we are introducing the same difficulty. I should like to hear Senator Gardiner’s views on that point, because I am sure we all wish to help the Government to the best of our ability to make this a workable measure, so that, if possible, we may minimize those disputes which are sapping the life blood of the community. We, in Australia, are as free from them as almost any part of the world. It is true that we have a good many, but they are not fought with the bitterness which characterized them in the past. I can remember in the old days that a dispute meant almost civil war. Nowadays, since we have introduced the Arbitration Court proceedings, we have to a great extent superseded the rule of brute force by the rule of reason, and I feel sure that that is what we all want to do. I shall do my best to assist the Government to make this as workable a measure as possible.

Senator ELLIOTT:
Victoria

.- One cannot fail to note from the speeches of honorable senators that they are basing great expectations of industrial peace upon the Bill, which has no doubt been introduced in fulfilment of the Government’s pledge to the electors. I must confess, however, to having grave doubts as to the efficacy of ‘the measure in its present form, but there are ideas embodied in it which, carefully worked out, are capable of doing very great good to the community. I trust, therefore, that the Ministry will be open to accept amendments suggested to them, if those amendments are good ones, even though they come from the latest recruits to the Senate. I well remember receiving, on the eve of the evacuation of Gallipoli, a suggestion from a lance-corporal, who had only joined up three weeks. That suggestion was ultimately adopted with great success by the Commandant of the Australian Imperial Force. I allude to a device for firing rifles automatically from the trenches after we had left them. I must confess to being a political fledgling, and I begin to fear that my apprenticeship to the art of legislation will furnish somewhat similar experiences to my apprenticeship to the art of war. I remember our experience with a trench mortar called the Garland gun, which fired a shell with a long tail on it like a kite. This implement was sent out to us as being well tested and recommended, but when we fired it against the wind the shell blew back into our own lines, to our very serious discomfort and discouragement. I begin to fear that this measure may be something in the nature of a Garland gun, which, after we have brought it forth with much labour, may, when it comes into operation, recoil on us and do damage rather than good to society.

One fact which we must all remember is that at the present day the labour unions are very powerful bodies, wielding great influence, not only industrially, but politically. “We must be on guard against the misuse of that power. So far from their being the representatives of the oppressed, there is danger of tyranny from them., and even Parliament itself may be flouted and overruled by them, as we recently saw an attempt to do in connexion with the deportation of Father Jerger. The arbitration measures have nourished the trade unions, and brought them to their- present perfection. There is also the great danger that any party or person that gets great power may misuse it. We have seen recently men go on strike at the instance of Mr. Wren, who was neither an employer nor an employee, and when neither wages nor hours, nor anything of that kind, were in dispute. The question was merely whether the Commonwealth Government should, exercise its undoubted power to deport a dangerous alien on a proved charge of disloyalty. Some provision should be .made to meet cases of that kind. It would be a good thing to give power to obtain a mandamus, or ‘something in the nature of a prohibition from the High Court against such a man when engaged in proceedings of the kind.

It has been urged that the Bill is an attempt to bring employees and employers together at round-table conferences to settle their disunites. If this were really so, we could say very little against it, but, as Senator Fairbairn pointed out, the Bill does not really do this. The provision that the employees may be represented by organizations of employees, without any proviso that the representa?tives chosen shall be bond fide employed in the industry, leaves that representation quite open, and the employees may be represented by persons who know nothing about the industry, and who are out to get all they can from the employers, not with the intention of helping the industry, or establishing industrial peace, but with the deliberate purpose, as pointed out by Senator Duncan, of making it impossible to carry on industry at all. Honorable senators know that it is the avowed object of certain extremist sections of the community deliberately to render it impossible to carry on society under the system of private enterprise.

Returning to the details of the Bill, I should like to see an amendment carried to insure that all members of a Board are bond fide engaged in the industry concerned in the dispute. I consider’ also that this measure should be made part of the Arbitration Act, and of the general arbitration system, and that the Boards should be appointed by the Court, out of a panel nominated from time to time by the persons concerned in the industry. The Chairman should also be appointed by the Court, if the Board is unable to agree upon a suitable person. These appointments should be removed as far as possible from the political atmosphere. We shall never get industrial agreement if politics are mixed up in the matter, which, therefore should be, removed right out. of the ambit of politics.

Although the Bill deals with many questions, it seems to be silent on the number of apprentices to be engaged in a trade. That matter requires very great attention. There is no doubt that, at the present time, we are suffering, as was pointed out by Senator- E. D- Millen, from a great dearth of skilled tradesmen, due to the undue restriction of apprenticeship to the skilled trades in the past.

Senator Pearce:

– The definition of “industrial matters,” as “all matters pertaining to the relations of employers and employees “ will surely cover apprenticeship.

Senator ELLIOTT:

– I think we can well put in apprenticeship to make it perfectly clear. The country is suffering at present great hardships through the lack of skilled labour, due to the restriction of apprenticeship in the past.

Another important question is the power to make inquiries into profits, prices, and trade secrets. This is a very dangerous power to give to a Board constituted in the fashion proposed. It is true that the Bill makes an attempt, by means of penalties, to provide against the temptation to divulge these secrets, but an endeavour on present lines to do that seems to be absolutely futile. The knowledgeof questions involving trade secrets and profits, affecting as they do the solvency of trading concerns, should be confinedto the Chairman, and it should not Be beyond the power of theGovernment to obtain a Chairman who can. be trusted by both sides. Under the present arrangement, if those secrets are communicated to a Board, which may consist of a dozen members, some of those members may be prevailed upon to part with their knowledge to the detriment of the persons interested, and there will be absolutely no means of discovering who has been guilty of divulging the information. With so many involved, it would be absolutely impossible to sheet home any charge to the satisfaction of a jury.

It- has been urged by Senator Pratten and others that the Senate should pass this Bill without any amendment, but we shall not be doing our duty to the. public if we donot attempt to improve’ it in every possible way. I sought the other day. to insert an amendment which was very necessary to prevent a certain Bill from proving a “ dud.” What I put forward was something in the nature of fuse toenable the Bill to work properly; my amendment was defeated. That measure dealt only with the Public Service, and was not so important. This Bill affects the whole community, and is an endeavour to secure industrial peace. I trust that, on an important measure of this nature, ‘ the Government will be prepared to receive any suggested amendments which will tend to the better working of its provisions’.

Senator BAKHAP:
Tasmania

– The objective sought to be achieved by the Bill is such a laudatory one that, provided it does not exceed the constitutional powers of; the Commonwealth Parliament, it is to be commended. I have listened to the speeches made by honorable senators, and without being laudatory - it is always difficult to praise an English-speaking man to his face - they have been very-informative ande !f have listened to them with great interest and profit.

What I have in my mind in regard to the measurehas been so well expressed by other honorable senators that it is not necessary, nor is it my intention, to delay the Senate for any length of time. But something so remarkable has happened that it is necessary for me, and incumbent on me or some one else, at the earliest possible moment, to draw attention to that event. Clause 2 provides -

This Act shall he read and construed subject to the Constitution, and so as not to exceed the legislative power of theCommonwealth, to the intent that where any enactment thereof would, but for this section, have been construed as being in excess of that power; it shall nevertheless be a valid enactment to the extent to which it is not in excess of that power.

I shall not attempt to discuss anything irrelevant to the measure, and the words I have just quoted will justify me making the remarks I intend to utter. I shall speak directly without any circumlocution concerning the decision of the High Court of Australia, which is printed in to-day’s press. In speaking of the High Court, I may say that I defer to nobody in my respect and regard for that eminent Tribunal ; but I am taking the first ‘Opportunity afforded me to say that it is most regrettable that thus early in the history of the Commonwealth we should have a mark of inconsistency and a reversion in regard to constitutional interpretation.

Senator Gardiner:

– It is not at all regrettable. If experience has shown that a variation should be made, why not do so?

Senator BAKHAP:

– The value of that Tribunal in regard to constitutional interpretation must be in consistency; and I feel impelled, with all due respect to the members of the High Court,’ both collectively and individually, to express my regret that the decision appearing in the newspapers this morning is in direct contradiction to the decisions we thought were well established in connexion with constitutional interpretation. I ask honorable senators to remember, and I very respectfully ask their Honours of the High Court Bench to remember, that most of the turmoil in Australia for the last decade has been caused by the fact that different political positions have been created, by virtue of High Court decisions, occasioning proposals for constitutional amendments that have been before the Parliament and the people for the past nine or ten years, and which were based on certain interpretations of the Constitution, as these interpretations in their turn were based upon High Court decisions. The original personnel of the High Court did, as such, entitle any decision of that Tribunal to be held in high regard and respect. I am not casting a reflection upon the present occupants of the High Court Bench, because its members may be, in legal lore and the faculty of constitutional interpretation, quite the peers of the gentlemen who have preceded some of them. Although many people may differ from me in regard to what it is right and proper this Parliament should have constitutional competency to legislate and effect, they will agree that it is regrettable if the High Court is to vary its judgments every few years with the necessary and natural alterations in its personnel.

I have in my possession a cuttingI have taken from this morning’s newspaper, containing these remarkable words -

If it were conceivable that the representatives of the people of. Australia as a whole would ever proceed to use their national powers to injure the people of Australia considered sectionally, it was certainly within the power of the people themselves to resent and reverse what might be done. No protection by the Court in such a case was necessary or proper.

Protection in such cases is not only necessary and proper, but was expected by the people of Australia when the Federal compact was entered into. We know without being told that we have constitutional power which the people of Australia have reserved to themselves, through the Legislature and by virtue of the referendum, to alter the Constitution; but to be told that the High Court was not expected to protect any one section of the people in Australia, to wit, a State in regard to laws which may be passed by this Legislature whether constitutional or not is something I am not going to subscribe to, with due deference to the members of the High Court Bench.

Section 74 of the Constitution provides -

No appeal shall be submitted to the Queen in Council from a decision of the High Court upon any question, howsoever arising, as to the limits inter se of the constitutional powers of the Commonwealth and those of any State or States, or as to the limits inter se of the constitutional powers of any two or more States, unless the High Court shall certify that the question is one which ought to be determined by Her Majesty in Council.

The whole question of industrial peace, so far as legislation can affect it, depends upon the powers of this Parliament, and the powers of this Parliament depend upon the interpreting authority constituted in the High Court. When the States become perturbed, as they will be by the decision which has been published this morning, I think it is time that this matter, which is important enough, I am sure, be referred to the King in Council.

I invite honorable senators, and the learned Judges of the High Court, to consider section 76 of the Constitution, which reads -

The Parliament may make laws conferring original jurisdiction on the High Court in any matter -

Arising under this Constitution, or involving its interpretation.

Arising under any laws made by the Parliament.

Of Admiralty and maritime jurisdiction.

Relating tothe same subject-matter claimed under the laws of different States.

I invite the learned Judges once more to consider if the Court was not established to. give protection to one section, namely, the people of any one State, in certain contingencies, what was the Court established for at all ? It was established for that very special reason, and if it were not for that we could have dispensed with the High Court and still have had a Commonwealth. It was not essential to have a High Court except for the purpose of protecting the interests and rights of the States under the Constitution. I may be misinterpreting the opinion published this morning, but I can never be accused of being disrespectful to the High Court or flippant concerning its decisionson constitutional questions.

I desire to make a brief reference to something that I think has been disclosed during the course of this debate. As I have said, honorable senators have addressed themselves in an intelligent and able fashion to the consideration of the measure, and I am in accord with its general principle and intention. I was, however, struck with the fact that honorable senators take it for granted, because they did not refer to it much, that there is a full and deep appreciation in the public mind of the almost undisclosed, tut principal, factor of the necessary combination of labour and capital with this element in regard to the production of wealth. There is no such popular appreciation of a great truth. We are continually being told of the relative importance of capital and labour, and of the necessity of creating harmony between these two great factors. It is, of course, in the division of the wealth created that we have these disputes which cause so much industrial turmoil and chaos.

I am supposed to be a friend of the capitalist ‘ and a supporter of his interests; but I look upon capital as I look upon labour, and regard them both as necessary instrumentalities in the creation of wealth and as instrumentalities only. I know that there is nothing original in what I am about to say, and that it has been clearly stated by others who are more competent to speak on the question of the factor I have mentioned than I am. I attach . first importance to brain power and organizing ability. Brains create wealth; and capital and labour are no more in themselves than the shovel in the hands of the workman. The shovel is but an instrument in the hands of the workman who is winning ore or digging coal; and everything depends upon the manner in which the shovel is handled. It is only when capital and labour are effectively used in conjunction with brains and organizing ability, that wealth can be produced. Capital badly employed or labour uselessly undertaken cannot produce wealth. Sufficient money could be found to place Mount Macedon in Port Phillip Bay, and to fill it up; but that would not be productive of national good. All capital and labour must be directed by the brain. I always tell the capitalist, the labour man, ,and everybody who has the welfare of the country at heart, that they can organize and re-organize as they think fit, But they must always recognise that under tike so-called capitalistic regime, or indeed “any other system, as the poet says, “ Those who think must govern those who toil.” The dominating factor of organizing ability has to be recognised as absolutely essential in all instrumentalities that produce wealth.

I have expressed that opinion from time to time on public platforms; and it is very largely owing to the fact that I was one of the first politicians in Australia to insist on ,it that I was able to enter the Legislature in the State of Tasmania, which I now assist in representing. I shall never fail to drum it into the minds of all who are concerned that brain, which means a certain kind of organizing ability and foresight, is the principal factor in the creation of wealth. The destruction of the -capitalistic regime, .as desired by some people, has been ably alluded to by Senator Duncan and others who have addressed themselves to this measure, and if there is anything inherently wrong in the capitalistic state, how has it been that it always developed in other countries and in other civilizations ? Every civilization that has been of any value has evolved, after numberless experiments the system of producing things for profit. Honorable senators, if they please, may call that a capitalistic state. What is there in this Parliament, or in this Chamber, to be particular, that would prevent us from destroying that capitalistic state, if we thought that it was as inherently dangerous to civilization as those individuals alluded to by Senator Duncan would” try to make out ?

Senator Gardiner:

– The lack of the chief factor to which the honorable senator has referred.

Senator BAKHAP:

– Are we capitalists? There may at the outside be two or three members of the Federal Parliament who may be considered fairly wealthy men, but I venture to say that except, perhaps, for a few insurance policies for the protection of their wives and children, the possession of a few acres of land, some small mining interest or something of the kind, a house or two, the possessions of honorable senators are such that it would be a complete misuse of the term ‘ ‘ capitalist ‘ ‘ to describe members of the Senate in that way.

Senator Foll:

– It would be a libel to call me a capitalist.

Senator BAKHAP:

– So that the capitalistic regime finds no special favour with us because of the gratuitous assumption that we are ourselves capitalists. The members of this Legislature are’ drawn from every rankand class in Australian society. We may claim that we are able men or that we are philosophers, but, with one or two exceptions, we certainly cannot claim that we are capitalists. So that the frequent statement that Parliament, as it exists at : the presenttime, is really an instrument for prolonging the capitalistic regime against the interests of industrialists is a wrong and totally unf founded imputation.

I hope with other honorable senators that the interests which they represent, which are the interests of the whole nation, will be benefited by the passage of this measure. I do not think that I should have been animated to speak upon it at allwere it not for what Ibelieve is a regrettable and reversing interpretation of a most important’ constitutional provision by the High Court of the Commonwealth.

Senator GARDINER:
New South Wales

– I agree that the recent decision of the High Court has some bearing upon the measure now under consideration, but . 1 am at a loss to understand why Senator Bakhap should complain of that decision. It is a decision by a Court with more matured judgment than, and constituted of different individuals to, the Court’ responsible for the original decision which it reverses. If Senator Bakhap imagines that the interests of thesmaller States will be adversely affected by the new decision, I can claim with equal force that their interests will be protected by the new decision, because it will have the effect of giving to the smaller States, shall I say, the advantage ofthe legislation of the Commonwealth Parliament. The decisions of an individual given this year will vary next year if he is true to himself; and why should the honorable senator complain of a Court varying a decision previously given ? . It should be remembered that the High Court is at present constituted of very able men, that the decision which they have reviewed has been before them for years, and they have been in possession of the reasons given for it. Why, in the circumstances, should any one complain of a variation of the originaldecision because it hap pens to cut across ‘his preconceived ideas upon the subject with which it deals?

Senator Bakhap:

– The common law of England is notbased upon contradiction.

Senator GARDINER:

– I hope that we shall never have a High Court that will always be governed by precedent.A High Court’ that would give a particular decision merely because a similar decision was given by the Court years before would soonbecome quite useless in a’ country like Australia. . I look forward to the time when there will be no High Court, and when the High Court of Australia will be the Federal Parliament; and its decisions will be final in matters of legislation from one end of Australia to another. . That is merely a commonsense view to take of constitutional development.

Senator Keating:

– The trouble is that Parliament does not always make itself clear.

Senator GARDINER:

– Those cases in which it does not make itself clear can be fought out in the ordinary Courts ; but no Court should be in . a position to override the will ofParliament, and there is no reason why, if its will has not been clearly expressed, Parliament should not make itself clear by amending legislation..

Senator Drake-Brockman:

– It can do that now;

Senator GARDINER:

– It cannot legislate in connexion with industrial matters in New South Wales, Tasmania, Queensland, or in any of the other States.

Senator Drake-Brockman:

– It can do so, . within the limits of the Constitution, Senator GARDINER. - That is my point; it is limited by the present provisions of the Constitution. I do not wish to drift into a discussion of the constitutional powers of this Parliament. I desired merely to refer to the strange attitude of Senator Bakhap in challenging the decision of Justices of the High Court, arrived at, probably, after a most minute consideration of allthe facts. Glancing casually at the decision,, it occurs to me that possibly it will broaden the powers of this Parliament, andon that . accountI welcome it, and I have no doubt the people o”f Australia willwelcome it.

Senator Bakhap:

– They did not welcoine it at the last referendum. “ Senator Keating.- The question is whether the decision does not also broaden the powers of the States.

Senator GARDINER:

– I realize that that question is also involved. Senator Fairbairn touched upon that aspect of the matter when he seemed to be of opinion that decisions given by Arbitration Courts of the States might ibe affected if it were held that decisions by the Commonwealth Arbitration Court were superior. If the decision broadens the powers of this Parliament, we should not complain of it. It is a decision, after all, by a competent authority. We may assume that it was given after full investigation, and it should not be complained of merely because an honorable senator, after a very hasty consideration of it, comes to the conclusion that it is nob in keeping with the duty for which he considers that the High Court was constituted.

I should like to refer to some of the remarks of Senator Duncan. I congratulate the honorable senator upon his very able speech. One of the amusing aspects of his speech was his complaint that unionists who are anti-Labour - and I am referring to political Labour - find themselves compelled to contribute funds to bhe political Labour movemenb. I do not know why the honorable senator should complain of that. The complaint really is that union funds are devoted to promoting the interests of only one political party. What is the reason for that? It is that experience has shown that it is profitable to the unions to put their funds into developing the Labour movement, and to retarding the development of the Nationalist movement. Surely the unionist who has had his earnings considerably increased by the efforts of unionism cannot object to the way in which the majority of unionists think it best to expend their funds! I can see no greater hardship in a unionist being compelled to contribute funds which are used to give effect to political views which he does not share than I see in my being asked as a taxpayer to pay more money for sugar than I would otherwise be called upon to pay, because honorable senators opposite, as Protectionists, thought fit to levy a duty of £6 per ton on imported sugar.

Senator Foll:

– That does not apply at present.

Senator GARDINER:

– Yes, there has been a duty on sugar for years. The Free Trader would like to obtain sugar more cheaply, but he does nob complain of whab has been done, because he bows to the will of the majority. The position^ of the unionist who does not agree politically with his fellow unionists is on all fours with the position of the Free Trader who is called upon to pay more for sugar than he would have to pay were it not that the majority in this Parliament . have passed a Protectionist Tariff.

Senator Duncan .dealt with this measure from the view-point of industrial development. The honorable senator has had large experience in actual industrial organizations, and of the industrial movement. All my life I have had experience only of the political Labour movement. I have not been an inside worker of industrial organizations, and I recognise that Senator Duncan speaks with a good deal of authority and knowledge, gained by many years well spent in industrial organizations. In common with other honorable senators, he has spoken of industrial turmoil. I see no industrial turmoil worth complaining of. Things are going on well. Recalling my own experience of political life in this country during a period of thirty years I can say that some years ago a measure of this kind would never have been allowed to reach its first-reading stage. The men of the employing class or the capitalistic class thirty years ago would not have dreamed of discussing a measure like this in the deliberate way in which it has been discussed by the Senate. The man who introduced such a measure would then have been looked upon as a menace to society, and as one who ought to be suppressed. I think that the use of the battle-axe would have been suggested in those days as the best means of suppressing him.

This Bill proposes the establishment of round-table conferences at which the em* ployer and employee shall sit together. In the old days it would never have been suggested that an employee should sit at a conference, to decide the basic wage to be paid to him, with the man who employed him. There was only one side to the wages question in those days. Now there are two sides to all industrial questions, and that is due to the political Labour movement assisting the industrial movement. I know that the assistance has been mutual. It is due to the political Labour movement assisted by the industrial movement that we are in a position to-day to discuss calmly a measure of this kind. I do not propose to. enter upon any wild harangue against capitalism, but if I cared to take the trouble to refer to what capital has done to society within the last 100 years I might bring before the Senate an indictment in terms which even an Industrial Workers ofthe World man in his wildest statements has never approached. Capitalists have starved mil-_ lions of people by their capitalistic methods, and they are starving them today. We in this country are in a particularly good position, but with all the advantages of sane legislation, and our endeavours to make things better for all classes, what has been the result of arbitration for the last twenty-five years? We have cases on record where an award has been given which has increased the wage of an employee, and on the following Monday morning he has been waited upon, and a man has said, “ I understand that you have been given an increase in your wages,” and when the worker has admitted that that was so, the reply has been, “Well, I intend to increase your rent.” We have had organized unionism, arbitration, and strikes, and the workers have improved their position ; but we have had increased wages chasing high prices all the time, and getting left behind. You will hear men ask how much better off is the worker with his increased wage today? He is no better off than he was with a smaller wage twenty years ago. All I have to say is that it is the capitalistic section that prevents the worker being better off with increased wages. I use the term capitalistic section for the reason that I like to remind that section that in all Labour’s legislation and efforts, no matter how they feared that they were injuring capital and preventing the development of capital, experience has shown that those efforts have tended to improve the position of capital more than they have improved the position of labour,

I should like to see an arbitration system brought into existence that would enable men at a round-table conference to fix not only the rate of pay which an employee shall receive, and the hours he shall work, but the rate of pay that capital shall receive. Let it be a fair deal for both sides.

Senator MILLEN:
TASMANIA · NAT; UAP from 1931

– Co-operation.

Senator GARDINER:

– I know that we shall reach that stage. Things are moving very quickly throughout the world, and we have nearly reached that stage at the present time. When I say “we,” I speak for the working classes. We have asked that Judges be appointed to fix a living wage. That is all that we have asked for. We have asked that a wage be fixed upon which it would be possible for us to exist; but we shall yet ask, demand, and enforce upon Tribunals the duty to fix not only the rate of pay we shall receive, but the rate of pay which shall be received by capital. We are within measurable distance of the time when that will be done. Then, as my honorable friend on the back bench has remarked, there will be cooperation.

I know that there are a lot of remedies for industrial evils. Some people talk of profit-sharing. The first historical case of profit-sharing with which I am acquainted was that of Jacob and Laban. Jacob entered into a contract with his uncle under which he was to get a share of the stock. All the spotted calves were to go to him. The system, therefore, was tried long ago, so that there is nothing new in it.

Senator Keating:

– The honorable senator knows the method which Shylock adopted.

Senator GARDINER:

– Yes. He was quite up-to-date in the method that suited him.

Senator Fairbairn:

– Suppose that the industry in which the capitalist has invested his money does not pay?

Senator GARDINER:

– I would save the capitalist from being placed in a position in which he was able to lose.

Senator Bakhap:

– How did Jacob get the spotted calves ? Was it by the use of brain power?

Senator GARDINER:

– He had brain power. He was an old hand, who knew that if certain colours were placed before the animals at a particular season, certain results would be produced. I merely mention this matter to show that the idea of profit-sharing is not a new one. Then I am asked how we shall meet the. ease mentioned by Senator Fairbairn - the case of the capitalist who loses his money ? My reply is that we require production for use, and not for profit.

Senator Bakhap:

– Then we should get back to barter, which is symbolical of a very primitive stage of civilization.

Senator GARDINER:

– To where we should get back it would require even an abler man than Senator Bakhap to accurately define. If, with our present industrial capacity, we could hit upon a system under which production would be for use, and not for profit-

Senator Bakhap:

– There would be very little thrift.

Senator GARDINER:

– Look at what has happened during the past six months in the State from which I hail. Under the capitalistic system, a man is told that he must make money legitimately if he can. Very well. A severe drought recently overtook New South Wales, and its disastrous effects have been felt there for a period of three years. Only in May of last year the small holders of live stock in that State had to suffer the loss of the whole of their flocks and herds because capital was buying up the chaff, bran, and fodder that were necessary to keep them alive. If any honorable senator doubts my statement, I refer him to the fodder sales which took place in Sydney during March of this year. At that time, chaff was quoted at £21 per ton ; its price to-day is £14 per ton.

Senator Plain:

– What would the honorable senator have the producers do to meet the requirements of the small men?

Senator GARDINER:

– The small men were prepared to pay the high prices, but the men who had speculated in the stock on the chance that the drought would burst, had also speculated in the fodder, and were holding it in case the drought did not break within a reasonable time. The capitalistic system in operation there cost Australia thousands of head of stock and millions of money.

Senator Wilson:

– There are other troubles. When hay is 25s. per ton, where docs the producer come in ?

Senator GARDINER:

– There are always troubles. If a strike will afford the capitalist an opportunity of improv- in? his financial position he is always ready to assist. He has absolutely ‘no conscience in the matter. If keeping chaff in Western Australia will enable him to get £10 per ton more for it than he can obtain by forwarding it to New South Wales, he will keep it in Western Australia. Just in proportion as the individual is injured so is the community benefited.

Senator Senior:

– Not always.

Senator GARDINER:

– But nearly always.. This capitalistic system is developing to an extraordinary extent. It is not only unionists who are fighting it. Victoria has said that New South Wales shall not get any wheat, and New South Wales has replied, “Then you shall not get any coal.”

Senator Russell:

– Victoria has never said that New South Wales shall not get any wheat.

Senator GARDINER:

– It is only six months since she was saying it, and it is merely because of the threat that New South Wales will not supply her with coal that she has ceased to say it.

If the passing of this Bill will make industrial matters work more smoothly I welcome it. During the past ten years our Arbitration Acts have kept the peace. While a nation is developing there will always be industrial upheavals, simply because the men of tomorrow will not be satisfied with that which satisfies the men of to-day. They would not be men if they were. Anybody who compares the industrial conditions which exist to-Hay with the slave-driving conditions of thirty years ago will be fully convinced that arbitration has something to recommend it. If this measure is intended to bring about industrial peace it certainly was not introduced in a way that would suggest that. Our party desired that a conference should be called before it was proceeded with. But the Government were in such a hurry to pass it that they guillotined it through the other branch of the Legislature. It had to be passed within a prescribed period. A measure which depends for its results upon the good-will of either the unionists or employers can never be successful if it is to be bludgeoned through in that manner. I endeavour to look without passion upon the industrial developments of the world. If, as some honorable senators seem to think, we can never get a better system than that by which one man, either by fair or foul means, may exploit another, life will not be worth living.

Senator Wilson:

– We get a lot of fun out of it.

Senator GARDINER:

– We have made very great strides, and we are still making them.

Senator Wilson:

– The honorable senator is going to give this Bill his blessing.

Senator GARDINER:

– So far as blessing the Bill is concerned, the results which will flow from it will depend entirely upon the attitude which is adopted by the employing and employed classes. Nothing that we can do here will make industrial conditions better. I have noted the conditions which obtain at the present time, and I am glad to say that there has been no very serious trouble. But we have in power in Australia, Governments, and a press, which will wring their hands and scream at the least difficulty which may crop up between capital and labour.

We have heard the Minister for Repatriation (Senator E. D. Millen) actually yelling because the trade unionists will not admit to their ranks a number of vocational trainees. When I interjected that I did not expect tradesmen who had served their apprenticeship to make any hurried departure from the conditions which had applied to their trade for centuries, he was very indignant. But we must recognise that there is almost a religious regard for the traditions of the different trades. To expect any trade union to admit anybody who has not gone through the same ceremony as its members - the ceremony of apprenticeship, and of practical acquaintance with all the technical branches of that trade - is unreasonable.

Senator Foll:

– But are not these trainees practically serving an apprenticeship now?

Senator GARDINER:

– Then let them go on serving it.

The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon T Givens:

– I must ask the honorable senator to confine his remarks to the Bill.

Senator GARDINER:

– In dealing with a measure of this character, surely the whole industrial outlook at die present time should interest us. What I am endeavouring to illustrate is that it is idle to scream because these trade unionists, who are conservative in their ideas - just as are honorable senators and myself - decline to alter the conditions surrounding their calling merely because they are asked to do so. Owing to their refusal to do so, both press and Parliament are ‘ prepared to yell at them.

In considering industrial measures of this kind, we ought to try to ascertain -the real cause of industrial disputes and troubles. I venture to say that we are educating the community. The world is being educated, and as the people of the world become more educated they will want more of what the world produces in the future than they had in the past. When the Arbitration Courts have given the men more wages, immediately the producing section, the boot manufacturers, the clothing manufacturers, the merchants, and the importers, knowing that the people were getting more wages, have increased their prices.

Senator Reid:

– Do you think that manufacturers deliberately increase the cost of goods because wages have gone up in another trade?

Senator GARDINER:

– I say without hesitation that the whole system does it. I am not blaming individuals. That is the system of capitalism against which men rave when they see its operations. They find that, no matter what they receive, they are surrounded by a number of tax collectors - the butcher, the baker, and the clothier. Everything that they use goes up in price as their wages increase. That is what is causing industrial unrest. I am not in the least disconcerted at it. I am merely pointing out the fact, to show that honorable senators must not get mistaken ideas into their minds and imagine that they see the way to cure existing conditions.

Senator Duncan said that the strike of the railwaymen in New South Wales was a political affair. No greater nonsense could be uttered.

Senator Duncan:

– You know it is true.

Senator GARDINER:

– I should like the honorable senator to explain what political advantage could have beengained by unionists, or any one else, by a’ strike in the railway service of New South Wales commencing on the 4th August, 1917, seeing that the general elections for the State Parliament had been held on the 24th March previous.

The elections were over, and the Government were securely in their seats no matter what the unions did. Any efforts the strikers made could not have made themselves felt for another two-and-a-half or three years. If you want to influence politics, the time to strike is a few months before, and not a few months after, an election, The honorable senator is on the wrong track if he thinks that a strike of that kind was a political movement. He knows as well as I do that there has not been that hearty co-operation between the industrial movement and the political movement, particularly in New South Wales, for very many years, that would induce the industrial movement to go on strike in the interests of the political movement.

Senator Duncan:

– You are trying to draw a red herring across the trail. You know all about that strike, because you were one of those who would have liked to condemn it at the time, but were not game.

Senator GARDINER:

– I stood on the platform at the time and took the part of the strikers, because I knew what the real business was. I do not care how the honorable senator criticises or condemns me, but I hope he will not say that I was not prepared to do a thing because I was not game. I think I have always shown that I never lacked courage, physically or morally.

Senator Duncan:

– Hear, hear ! I withdraw the remark.

Senator GARDINER:

– I have said things on the floor of this Chamber at most critical times, when I was taking quite as many political risks as any other man was taking.

The real cause of strikes is quite simple. It is that the many have been kept out of what they earn, and are getting enough intelligence to know that they are entitled to all they earn.

Senator Reid:

– How would you define “ all they earn “ 1

Senator GARDINER:

– That should give no trouble. The honorable senator knows that out of the millions of people in the world only a few enjoy the luxuries and good things of life.

Senator MILLEN:
TASMANIA · NAT; UAP from 1931

– How much would the working man get if capital got nothing ?

Senator GARDINER:

– He would then get his equal share, which is all he wants.

All I desire a man to have is his equal share of what the world produces, neither more nor less. Surely every man is entitled to what he produces ?

Senator Senior:

– Now you are getting into a bog again. What does he produce?

Senator GARDINER:

– It is no bog to me, because I have thought the matter out. The world is realizing that each man is entitled to his fair share of what he produces, and that no one is entitled to say, “ I shall do the dividing, and you wage slaves or serfs shall get only what I think is your share.” Labour organizations will take up industrial arbitration when it suits them, and they will do what capital will always do, that is, they will strike when it suits them. Only recently a High Court Judge, after asking in vain for certain documents and papers from a Government Department, walked out of the Court. He went on strike.

Senator Bakhap:

– Perhaps he could not carry out his duties properly without them.

Senator GARDINER:

– He adopted the only means of bringing home to the authorities the necessity for supplying him with those documents. That was to leave off working, and that is what labour does.

Senator Duncan:

– His protest was quite effective.

Senator GARDINER:

– It was, and the strike weapon is effective at times.

What is capital doing to-day? Those who own capital would invest it at 4£ per cent, a few years ago; they are on strike now for 8 or 9 per cent. They will not let any one have it unless he pays them 8 or 9 per cent.

Senator Elliott:

– There is plenty to be had to-day for 5£ per cent, from any trustee company if you have broad acres security.

Senator GARDINER:

– I should like the Government to supply the Senate with a return pf the registered loans entered into during the last six months. I venture to say that it would show more at over 7^ per cent, than at 5-J per cent. The fact is plain that capital is on strike for a higher rate of interest, just as the workers have struck for higher rates of wages. Those who own capital will not invest it unless they can get higher interest.

Senator Elliott:

– It depends on your security.

Senator GARDINER:

– It does not matter how good, the security is. The Government are offering 6 per cent, for a loan, although they can produce the best security in the country, because they can control the capital of every one else if they like to call it up. The fact that the Government now offer 6 per cent, when five or six years ago they offered only 4 or 4^ per cent, is a proof that capital is on strike at 4$ per cent. It may work a little at 6 per cent., but if its owners thought they could get 7 per cent, by withholding it for twelve months, they would withhold it. Knowing, however, that the Government have the whip hand with the threat of a Compulsory Loan Act, they will reluctantly disgorge at 6 per cent.

To my mind, the right to strike is the right to freedom. It is the right of every free man to work or cease to work, as he likes, and we cannot interfere with that right unless we are prepared to make slaves of men. If I am not satisfied with my wages, or conditions, or hours of work, it is my right to leave off working, and no Legislature has the right to interfere. It is a matter of “ fundamental justice,” to quote a phrase discussed in another place last week.

Senator Wilson:

– As a unionist, you do not believe in that view.

Senator GARDINER:

– It is clear to me, although it may not be to the honorable senator, that the unions, with these definite ideas of liberty in their minds, have been moving towards the goal of greater individual liberty by collective action.

Senator Wilson:

– You only agree that a man has a right to work in an industry provided that he belongs to the union in that industry.

Senator GARDINER:

– I believe that every man has’ the right to please himself as to whether he works or not. He must be the sole judge of that matter, and our unions believe in that principle also. What is it that binds us together? We have discovered that by holding together, and even sacrificing bur individual opinions and inclinations, we can do better on the whole.

Senator Senior:

– That is very close to the border-line of “ might, not right.”

Senator GARDINER:

– Of course it is might. What right is there if it is not backed by might? A right goes out of existence otherwise. It is all a matter of force. I say, and perhaps this may be taken as a warning, that if this Industrial Peace Bill does not succeed, and if the other Arbitration Bill does not succeed, there is going to be an appeal to might in the future. There are going to be no more peaceful strikes. In the next strike of any magnitude in Australia, the capitalist will lose as much as the starving workers lose. It will not be a case of capital sitting down and allowing labour to starve until it comes back to work. For every penny that labour loses capital will lose more. The time for peaceful strikes has gone by.

Senator Rowell:

– Would they set fire to their premises?

Senator GARDINER:

– It would not surprise me if anything happened. I have long seen patience abused, and patience abused will turn to fury. I have seen the men who do the work, the men who plan and scheme and give their time, as Senator Duncan did in his day, to better the condition of the workers, branded as blackguards, whenever trouble has come, by men like Senator Bakhap and others in this Chamber.

Senator Bakhap:

– No.

Senator GARDINER:

– In any industrial trouble, Tories, such as Senator Bakhap, consider only the interests of the employers, who have no regard for any one but themselves.

I do not desire to delay the passage of this measure unnecessarily, and merely rose to express my views on the situation. I view with a considerable amount of pleasure the trend of events. As far as a majority of the workers are concerned, nothing could be worse than their present conditions, under which many do the work and a few enjoy, the benefits. No matter what force is employed I believe that the One Big Union is as sure to come as the smaller ones came. The workers can see that the Government will not give them what they want, and that they are constantly raising constitutional obstacles in their way, whether they are right or wrong.

Senator Wilson:

– They have been right and wrong.

Senator GARDINER:

– That is the opinion of the man who has eyes to see, una? who will not see, and who has’ ears to bear, and will not hear, because, as far as the workers of Australia are concerned, we have every reason to be proud of them, and can look upon them as lawloving and peaceful people. They have been driven into strikes because of disputes real or imaginary.

Senator Wilson:

– They have been led into them.

Senator GARDINER:

– Nine, strikes out of ten have been caused by grievances real or imaginary, and an imaginary grievance is more difficult to remove than a real one, because we can place our finger on a real grievance and help to remove the cause. It only requires good statesmanship and administration, and we could get through without strikes at all. In connexion with the pastoral industry, from Mr. Justice O’Connor’s judgment - which was given before that of Mr. Justice Higgins - up to the present time, there hae not been a strike of any magnitude. During the past ten years, although we have had militant unionists fighting, there has been comparative industrial peace, notwithstanding the fact that prices have soared so high that men have hean compelled to demand more. I venture to say that even now, if wise counsels prevailed, and if the employers realized- that. the cost of living is so high, that a oman who received an increase, say, twelve months ago, is not now in a position to meet his liabilities, there would be little unrest. The figures of the Government Statistician show that there has been an increase of 23 per cent. Any arbitration that is introduced must be in the form of roundtable conferences, where the .representatives of the different parties will meet to discuss the situation. There must be no fixed awards, because the prices of necessary commodities are fluctuating to such an extent that what may be considered a living wage to-day may be totally inadequate a few months hence. I have much pleasure in opposing the Bill.

Senator RUSSELL:
VicePresident of the Executive Council · Victoria · NAT

I.G.25): - At this hour I shall not attempt to speak in reply, and I therefore ask leave to continue my remarks on the next day of sitting.

The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. ‘ T. Givens). - It must be understood that as the Vice-President of the ExecutiveCouncil (Senator Russell) has commenced his speech in reply, no other honorable senator will be allowed to speak-, on the second reading of this Bill.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Senate adjourned at 6.26 p.m.

Cite as: Australia, Senate, Debates, 1 September 1920, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/senate/1920/19200901_senate_8_93/>.