R v McMahon; Ex parte Darvall

The application for a writ of mandamus should be dismissed.

The applicant did not seek to restore the authority of the opinions expressed by Griffith C.J. and O'Connor J. in Jumbunna Coal Mine N.L. v. Victorian Coal Miners' Association [55] . The argument focused upon the activities of Australian universities and sought to show that those activities were incidental or ancillary to industry, a question of degree (per Gibbs J. in Reg. v. Holmes; Ex parte Public Service Association (N.S.W.) [56] ). I agree, for the reasons stated by Mason J., that that argument fails. The facts do not show universities to be mere industrial schools and I would not have thought them to be so. The purpose of university education is not to mould men and women to the needs of industry even though much of the education provided by universities imparts knowledge and skills which are useful to graduates who gain employment in industry or helpful or even essential to the gaining of that employment. As Rich J. pointed out in Federated State School Teachers' Association of Australia v. Victoria [57] , men and women are not, as capital is, an "instrument of production". To regard university education as ancillary to industry because it equips men and women with the knowledge and skills needed to take their place in industry is to regard industrial activities, rather than the men and women engaged in industry, as the objects served by university education. That view would invert what is ancillary and what is primary in both university education and civilized values.