Strictly speaking, Australia has never legally guaranteed the right to strike. In large part, this is because of the country’s unique industrial relations system, built around compulsory conciliation and arbitration. This system was enshrined in law by the 1904 Arbitration Act, which gave trade unions the rights to apply for legal recognition, allowing them to bring disputes with employers to industrial courts for conciliation or binding arbitration.

As a result, Australia was one of the first nations to legalize labor organizing. As part of this compromise, the unions relinquished the right to strike. Indeed, the express intention of the Arbitration Act was to “prevent lockouts and strikes in relation to industrial disputes.” Consequently, unions that organized work stoppages in defiance of the act were burdened with substantial financial penalties.

Between 1949 and 1967, the Liberal governments of Robert Menzies and Harold Holt increased the severity of these fines and the frequency with which they were issued. Laws known as the “penal powers,” introduced under Menzies, also allowed the courts to jail union officials for refusing to pay.