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"(a) to establish an expeditious system for preventing and settling industrial disputes by the methods of conciliation and arbitration;
"(b) to promote goodwill in industry and to encourage the continued and amicable operation of orders and awards made in settlement of industrial disputes;
"(c) to provide for the appointment of Conciliation Commissioners having power to prevent and settle industrial by conciliation and arbitration;
"(d) to provide means whereby a Conciliation Commissioner may promptly and effectively whether of his own motion or otherwise. prevent and settle threatened, impending, probable or existing industrial disputes;
"(e) to provide for the observance and enforcement of such orders and awards;
"(j) to constitute a Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration having exclusive appellate jurisdiction in matters law arising under this Act and limited jurisdiction in relation Io industrial disputes; and
"(g) to encourage the organisation of representative bodies of employers and of employees and their registration under this Act."
Such being the title of the Act and such its chief objects, it cannot be denied that its primary purpose and in effect its only purpose is the settlement of industrial disputes by conciliation and arbitration. It is necessary, however to see what part is to be played by the Court established under the Act in a field apparently so remote from the proper exercise of the judicial function.
After certain introductory matters in Part I the Act proceeds in Pant II to provide for the appointment of Conciliation Commissioners and to prescribe their duties and functions. The importance for the present purpose of this Part of the Act lies in the fact that it is made competent for, and in certain events compulsory on the Conciliation Commissioner to refer disputes in which he has original cognisance to the Chief Judge of the Court may in turn refer them to the Court for hearing and settlement. The jurisdiction of the Court (if in this connection jurisdiction is a proper term to use) extends to industrial disputes beyond those specially referred to it by later provisions of the Act.
Part III of the Act establishes the Court. It enacts that there shall be a Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, that it shall consist of a Chief Judge and such other Judges as are in pursuance of the Act and that it shall be a Superior Court of Record. It provides that the Chief Judge and each other Judge shall be appointed by the Governor General and shall not be removed except by the Governor General on an address from both Houses of the Parliament in the same session praying for his removal on the ground of proved misbehaviour and incapacity, and it makes provision for remuneration. It thus complies with the provisions of section 72 of the Constitution in regard to the Justices of the High Court and of the other Courts created by the Parliament. It then prescribes what jurisdiction may be exercised by a single Judge, other jurisdiction being exercised by not less than three judges. By section 25 an important original jurisdiction is conferred on the Court. It enacts that the Court may for the purpose of preventing or settling an industrial dispute make an order or award (a) altering the standard hours of work in an industry. (b) altering the basic wage for adult males (that is to say that wage or that part of a wage which is just and reasonable for an adult male without regard to any circumstance pertaining to the work upon which, or the industry in which, he is employed) or the principles upon which it is computed, (c) making provision for or in relation to or altering a provision for or in relation to long service leave with pay, (d) determining or altering the basic wage for females as therein mentioned.
