[Higgins, Henry B. (President), Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, 1907, Ex parte HV McKay (Harvester Case)(1907) 2 CAR 1, Court decision (the "Harvester Judgement"), published by Law Internet Resources, Parliament of Australia, http://www.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/intguide/law/harvester.pdf]
...
The provision for fair and reasonable remuneration is obviously designed for the benefit of the employees in the industry; and it must be meant to secure to them something they cannot get by the ordinary system of individual bargaining with employers. If Parliament meant that the conditions shall be such as they can get by individual bargaining - if it meant that those conditions are to be fair and reasonable, which employees will accept and which employees will give in contracts of service - there would have been no need for this provision. The remuneration could safely have been left to the usual, but unequal, contest, the "higgling of the market" for labor, with that pressure for bread on one side, and the pressure for profits on the other. The standard of "fair and reasonable" must, therefore, be something else; and I cannot think of any other standard appropriate than the normal needs of the average employee, regarded as a human being living in a civilised community.
...
