The Secretary to the Prime Minister's Department has forwarded, for advice, a copy of a decision of the Shipbuilding Tribunal with respect to the day-work rates of pay of labourers employed in the shipbuilding yards of Messrs Poole and Steele, South Australia, and has requested advice as to whether the Tribunal had jurisdiction to deal with the matter.

It appears from the report of the proceedings of the Tribunal in the case in question that there is no award of the Commonwealth or a State Arbitration Court nor any determination of a Wages Board providing for the wages of labourers employed in iron or shipbuilding yards.

Clause (5) of the agreement made between the Commonwealth and employees in connection with the shipbuilding scheme provides that the tribunals appointed as agreed to be the Shipbuilding Conference shall not have jurisdiction to deal with day-work rates prescribed by any Arbitration Court under any Commonwealth or State law.

Such a tribunal would, I think, have jurisdiction to deal with day-work rates not so prescribed.

As the day-work rates have not in the present case been so prescribed, I am of opinion that the Tribunal had jurisdiction to determine the day-work rates of the labourers in the shipbuilding yards of Messrs Poole and Steele.

[Vol. 17, p.86]