Australian Employment Law

Australian Employment Law
Running Head: Australian Employment Law
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Australian Employment Law 1
Contents
Question 1........................................................................................................................................2
Question 2........................................................................................................................................2
Question 3........................................................................................................................................3
References........................................................................................................................................4

Australian Employment Law 2
Question 1
The given statement under Question 1 is correct. As it was held in the case of Ex parte H.V.
McKay (1907) 2 CAR 1, that an unskilled laborer deserved a living wage of 42 shillings per week
or 7 shillings a day (Museums Victoria Collections, 2018). This case is years old but yet the provision
under labour law of Australia are same. While giving the decision of the aforesaid case, Justice Higgins
stated that wages for work must be fair and reasonable. What is fair and reasonable is depends that the
person who is getting such wages is able to fulfill his basic requirements or not. 7 or 42 Shillings are a
number but the value of the same depends on the inflation rate of an economy (Pettinger, 2017). It is to
state that purchasing power of a person also depends on the value of currency and further such value of
currency again depends on inflation rate of an economy as earlier mentioned.
Under Australian Employment Law, Minimum wages is not a part of national Employment Scheme and
the same is comes under the purview of Awards. Fair Work Commission is the Authority which reviews
the annual wages and making the policies according to them. This is the authority which decides whether
the level of minimum wages should be increase or not (Fair work commission, 2018). In this context it
may state that in respect to minimum wages, after the decision of sunshine harvester case, Australian
labour law has not changed as much as required.
Question 2
In the case Commonwealth Bank of Australia v Barker [2014] HCA 32 it was held that whether
this is somewhere in the contract of employment it is mentioned or not but there is always an
implied term of mutual trust and confidence do exist in employment contracts. The decision
given in this case brought a positive aspect for employees as in this case Mr. Barker who was
former employee of Commonwealth Bank of Australia received an award of $317,000 in