Plans are afoot to permanently open the gateway to the site of the former Sunshine Harvester Works’ factory, the centre of one of Australia’s most significant industrial relations law cases.
Sunshine resident Catherine McDonald is petitioning Brimbank council that it open the Russell Street gates, once at the main entrance to the factory, and construct a landscaped thoroughfare between Devonshire Road and the Visy Cares Hub, which is the last remnant of the factory.
Ms McDonald said few people were aware of the site’s historical significance.
“The [Arbitration Court] decision is very famous – the only place it isn’t is in Sunshine,” Ms McDonald said.
“The sole reference to this great historical event is the mural decorating one side of the support piers of the McKay pedestrian bridge.”
The 1907 case came about after Sunshine Harvester Works’ factory owner Hugh Victor McKay appealed a tariff he was obliged to pay because he did not pay his employees a wage that was “fair and reasonable”.
Justice Higgins of the Arbitration Court decided that 7 shillings a day, or 42 shillings a week, was a “fair and reasonable” wage for an unskilled labourer.
‘Ex parte H.V. McKay’, known as the Harvester Case, is a landmark Australian labour law decision because it became the basis of the national minimum wage system.
Ms McDonald has suggested naming the proposed thoroughfare Justice Higgins Lane, and she envisions the space being landscaped to include a water rill symbolic of “the flow of history and enlightenment”.
Ms McDonald wants more signage about the Harvester case and the wrought iron gates, which were made in the company’s gate shop in 1922 by Scottish migrant and blacksmith Charlie Pippett.
Heritage Victoria spokeswoman Pauline Hitchins said opening the Russell Street gates was unlikely to require a permit.
But the proposed walkway would if extensive works and changes to the surface were proposed.
“In general, Heritage Victoria is supportive of projects which showcase our heritage,” she said.
Brimbank director city development, Stuart Menzies said the Sunshine Town Centre Structure Plan had identified a possible future pedestrian link at the site. However, because it is privately owned any plans would be subject to negotiations with adjacent land owners and developers.
