An Introduction to the Industrial Court

Abstract

From 1894, when the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act sprang from the Fabian brain of New Zealand’s first Minister of Labour, William Pernber Reeves, the Arbitration Court had both a judicial and an arbitral function; that is, after first arbitrating between the employers and the workers’ organisations and “awarding” them wages, hours and conditions of employment to live by, the Court could then don judicial garb and interpret those very same awards whenever disputes as to their meaning or application arose. An award is something akin to a statute. But the techniques of statutory interpretation were never a burden to the Arbitration Court, as the Court as law interpreter always understood the intent of the Court as law giver, and interstices could be filled according to the original intent of the parties.