Labour Law in Australia: Wages, Discrimination, OHS and Unfair Dismissal

UNIVERSITY
Australian
Employment Law
Questions in relation with the Labor
Law of the country
Student Credentials
2/24/2020

Labour Law 1
Australian Labour Law
Question 1:
As per the ex parte case that is the basis of the discussion, H.V. McKay, also that has been
widely called the Harvester case or the Harvester Decision was concerning the wages that are
reasonable for a labourer that is unskilled. At that time, it was being difficult for the people to
figure out what was the basic wage for the workers and in order to make it a standard wage,
this judgement was passed. Later, this judgement was considered as a basic standard for the
national minimum wage system in Australia. Justice Higgins from the Commonwealth
Conciliation and Arbitration Court was the one who was the judge deciding in this case.
There was a time, when a person was being given 5 shillings a day and another being paid
around 7 or 8 shillings a day for the same time duration. In order to avoid any hassle and
create a constant framework to measure the income and remove discrimination and poverty,
this method was adopted (Fair Work Commission, 2019).
However, since the year of 1907, there has been a whole rise in the living standards of
individuals living the country yet these changes have been made considering the previous
cases that have been decided. People then were living on 42 shillings for a whole week, but
when compared to the laws in the modern Australia, as per the fair work’s website, anyone
can find out that the basic minimum wage for a person per week is around $ 740.80 which is
for around 38 hours. Still this is an amount that is just the basic and many people cannot get
buy this for the whole week, which is common. Living expenses of every individual differs
from the other and by the time, rates be it related to rent or living situation or food or clothing
all the basic things have been on a constant rise. When the judgement was passed in 1907, the
approximate cost was built around the basic amenities, that included, bread, vegetable, fruit,
milk, meat, rent then and as such. Now the basic amenities also include, car maintenance

Labour Law 2
cost, insurance, savings, school costs (if any children). This list just does not stop on these
expenses, there are wide range of other expenses that need to be considered due to the
changed times (Fairwork Ombudsman, 2020).
Question 2:
There are a certain implied rules and regulations that each employee needs to work in
accordance with. Otherwise all of the employment contracts in Australia are in some or the
other manner in consideration with the basic standards as specified by the fair work
ombudsman as well as the commonwealth. These two were the main two legislative bodies
that made certain standards so as to make these matters much convenient to decide upon or
standardize the whole process. In the case of Comcare v Banerji [2019] HCA 23 it was
identified that a public servant was tweeting about the internal workings of the legislative
body, now the issue does not arise if the defendant is posting something about his/her work or
just a general post relating to the employment, but about the internal processes or the
confidential information (Byrne, 2019). Now this kind of an act is infringement of certain
unsaid rules and regulations is violation of ethics and basic laws of labour. Even in scenarios
as such a confirmation from the employer even regarding their own views can be taken if
there is need to post any contradictory or something that can or might cause harm,
specifically on the social media (Fairwork Ombudsman, 2020).
The instance as such of the well -known rugby player, Israel Folau and Rugby Australia, a
similar thing happened, when the famous rugby player was dismissed from his contract with
Rugby Australia due to his comments on the social media site Instagram. As per the
organization, the post as uploaded by the famous professional player breached their code of
conduct. He with an attempt of posting something as his opinion clearly posted on the social
media handle that the homosexuals, among others, would go to hell. As a result of which, he
was dismissed and was later terminated. Against this, the Rugby player launched court

Labour Law 3
proceedings against the organization for the wrongful or unlawful termination. Later on the
settlement was also made between the parties according to which, Israel Folau was
compensated as well for dismissing him all of a sudden and the grounds specified by him
were based upon freedom of religion and not the breach of the code of conduct (Mark,
2019).
Both of these cases are quite similar to a certain level but, differ from each other once they
are studied in detail. These certain issues arise when the code of conduct as such is not as per
the regulations of the statutory body or the authority. In cases as such, discussion everything
in respect with the opinions one has regarding the work or as such, everything needs to be
discussed with the employer, rather than posting confidential information on the social media.
Question 3:
In any country, it is not legal to discriminate people on the basis of their sex, status, age, race
or disability or gender for that matter. Since, it is something that is against the human rights
of each and every individual, these kinds of activities have been banned from several
countries and have been labelled as an illegal activity. In Australia, there are a certain acts to
prevent any kind of discrimination in the country. There are certain federal laws inn Australia
that are related to anti -discrimination, most common ones are the Age Discrimination Act
2004, Disability Discrimination Act 1992, Racial Discrimination Act 1992 and Sex
Discrimination Act 1984 (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2020). The Attorney
General’s department is the one that takes care of all of these discrimination based cases and
fights against the discrimination in any form in the country. There are a certain guidelines as
well that take care of the discrimination issue this is the Australian Government Guidelines
on the Recognition of Sex and Gender. These are regulated and monitored by the Attorney
General’s department as well. The framework according to which these guidelines are