The Evolution of Tariff Protection and Wage Protection in the Late Colonies and Early Federation

Abstract

This paper examines the links between tariff protection and wage protection. These two areas of regulation were linked politically by a coalition of the Protectionist Party and the Labour Party which supported both policies together. In the regulatory systems themselves there were links through New Protection Policy and the major influence it had on the hugely important Harvester Judgment of the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration. By 1910, these developments had laid down the foundations of Australian tariff policy and labour market regulation which became among the most highly regulated markets in the non‐communist world for many decades.

Housing wealth, mortgages and Australians’ labour force participation in later life

“…Australia offers an interesting context. The country traditionally relied on a wage earners’ welfare system (Castles, 1997) based on arbitration institutions that policed high minimum wages, migration barriers that restricted labour supply, regulation of the private sector to deliver social insurance benefits normally delivered through social security (Herscovitch and Stanton, 2008) and buttressed by tariffs that encouraged employer compliance (Lloyd, 2017). Since the 1980s, this wage earners’ welfare system has been dismantled and replaced by an increasingly asset-based welfare strategy for old age.…”