ABSTRACT
The social reform initiatives that most contributed to the idea of an antipodean social laboratory at the end of the nineteenth century were the old-age pension and wage arbitration. Both were initiated first in New Zealand, and then taken up – in different forms – in the Australian colonies, particularly Victoria and NSW. Both have been said to owe much to the influence of social liberal ideas about the ethical role of the state, with their legislative possibility being buttressed by the emergence of the labour movement into the polity. In New Zealand, the compulsory arbitration of wages was established in 1894; the legislation for an old-age pension, first attempted in 1896, finally passed in 1898. Victoria extended its existing Factory Act in 1896 in ways that made wages boards much more significant in regulating minimum wages and conditions, while NSW passed an Arbitration Act in 1901. Victoria also legislated for a pension in 1900, but this was a quixotic and hasty measure intended to pre-empt NSW, which had already passed an Old Age Pensions Act earlier in 1900, but which came into effect six months after the Victorian pension.
