FROM HARVESTER TO DEREGULATION - WAGE-EARNERS IN THE AUSTRALIAN WELFARE-STATE

The significance of the Harvester Judgment in 1907 was not only in the establishment of a 'fair and reasonable' wage, which became known as the basic wage, but also in the principle that wages had to meet at least the basic social needs of the worker's family. Income earned through employment was thus regarded as primary welfare. These principles in wage determination were discarded in the 1960s and the de-regulation policies of the 1980s further increased the division between employment and social needs. Exacerbated by the endemic high levels of unemployment, the progressive de-regulation of the labour marked since the 1980s has been one of the most significant causative factors in the growing inequality in Australia.