The Secretary to the Prime Minister's Department has requested advice as to whether the Public Service Arbitrator has power, under the Arbitration (Public Service) Act 1920, to make a common rule for the whole of the Commonwealth Public Service, including officers who are not members of an organisation registered under the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904-1920.

Section 14 of the Arbitration (Public Service) Act 1920 provides, inter alia, as follows:

(1) For the purposes of this Act, the Arbitrator shall have power as regards any claim or application submitted to him under this Act-

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(e) to declare by any order that any term of a determination shall, subject to such conditions, exceptions, and limitations as are declared in the order, be a common rule of the Public Service or of any branch or part of the Public Service:

The expression 'the Public Service', as used in the Act, unless the contrary intention appears, means the Public Service of the Commonwealth (see Acts Interpretation Act 1901-1918, section 21), and includes the Public Service of the Northern Territory and of the Territory for the Seat of Government, and the service of any public institution or authority of the Commonwealth, and includes

all persons employed in any such service in any capacity, whether permanently or temporarily, and whether under the Commonwealth Public Service Act 1902-1918 or not, but does not include persons employed in the Naval or Military Forces only (see section 3 of the Act).

The question then arises whether the contrary intention appears in section 14. By that section the power of the Arbitrator to make a common rule can only be exercised for the purposes of the Act and as regards any claim or application submitted to him under the Act. The latter words do not appear to be material to the question at issue. It is therefore necessary to determine whether the Arbitrator in making a common rule for the whole of the Public Service is doing so for the purposes of the Act.

The Act is entitled 'An Act relating to the settlement of matters arising out of employment in the Public Service'. That, of course, is wide enough to include matters arising out of the employment of persons who are not members of a registered organisation. Then by section 12 of the Act the Arbitrator is required to determine all matters submitted to him relating to salaries etc. of officers and employees of the Public Service but claims in relation thereto can only be submitted by a registered organisation and then only in respect of the members of the organisation.

Any determination made under that section can, I think, only relate to members of the organisation concerned, but the section, in my opinion, goes no further than defining the classes of claimants, and limiting the classes of persons to whom the determination will apply.

Section 12 in effect merely lays down the conditions under which officers of the Public Service may submit their claims to the Arbitrator and have them determined, and neither that section nor any other provision of the Act appears to limit the purposes of the Act as expressed in the title.

In my opinion, therefore, as the making of a common rule applying to the whole of the Public Service would be for the purposes of the Act, the contrary intention does not therefore appear in section 14, and the expression 'the Public Service' has in that section the meaning expressed above, without qualification.

I am, therefore, of opinion that the Public Service Arbitrator has power to make a common rule applying to the whole of the Public Service, including officers and employees who are not members of a registered organisation.

[Vol. 18, p. 458]