WAGES AND WAGE POLICY - AUSTRALIA IN THE DEPRESSION, 1929-34

The starting-point for this examination of the Australian wage-fixing system during the Great Depression is the recent conclusion by Gregory, Ho, and McDermott that the Commonwealth Court was ineffective in its attempt to impose a 10 per cent reduction in real wages. They argue that labour markets, centralized and decentralized, resisted the 10 per cent cut, so that wage policy played no part in the recovery from the Depression. By surveying the decisions and influence of the Commonwealth Court, and the wage-fixing institutions and wage outcomes in Victoria and New South Wales, this article concludes that the hypothesis of Gregory et al. cannot be supported. Contemporary views were closer to the mark.