| Established | 1986 |
|---|---|
| Chair | Frank Parry KC |
| Website | www.hrnicholls.com.au/ |
The HR Nicholls Society is an Australian think tank that focuses on industrial relations.[1][2] According to its website, the think tank “is a committed advocate for sensible industrial relations reform.”[3]
It was created in March 1986 after John Stone, Peter Costello, Barrie Purvis, and Ray Evans organised a seminar aimed at discussing the Hancock Report and other industrial matters.[4][5] Regular contributors to the Society's publications have been Ray Evans, Adam Bisits and Des Moore, the Director of the Institute for Private Enterprise. Adam Bisits was the President of the Society until 2017, replacing Evans,[6] who stepped down in 2010.
The Society is named after Henry Richard Nicholls,[7] an editor of the Hobart newspaper The Mercury, who in 1911 published an editorial criticising H. B. Higgins, then a High Court judge and President of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, accusing Higgins of behaving in a politically partisan and unjudicial manner after attacking a barrister.[8] This led to Nicholls being prosecuted for contempt of court by the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth, only to be acquitted by the full bench of the High Court.[9][10]
- ^ "HR Nicholls Society". The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995). ACT: National Library of Australia. 15 September 1986. p. 2. Retrieved 11 December 2013. - letter to editor HR Nicholls Society is not an ideological think-tank. It is a discussion group concerned with industrial relations reform
- ^ "New Right or Old Wrong? Ideology and Industrial Relations" article by Braham Dabscheck in Journal of Industrial Relations doi:10.1177/002218568702900401 JIR December 1987 Vol. 29 No. 4 425-449, accessed 17 September 2010
- ^ "The H.R. Nicholls Society". The H.R. Nicholls Society. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
- ^ Stone, J. "HR Nicholls: Let's Start All Over Again: The Origins and Influence of the HR Nicholls Society". www.hrnicholls.com.au. Archived from the original on 19 July 2008.
- ^ "The HR Nicholls Society and its Work". www.hrnicholls.com.au. Archived from the original on 1 September 1999.
- ^ "Board members". www.hrnicholls.com.au. Archived from the original on 20 October 2016.
- ^ Bate, Weston (1974). "Nicholls, Henry Richard (1830–1912)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: Australian National University. ISBN 978-0-522-84459-7. ISSN 1833-7538. OCLC 70677943. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
- ^ "A modest Judge". The Mercury. Tasmania. 7 April 1911. p. 4 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ R v Nicholls [1911] HCA 22 (1911) 12 CLR 280 at p.286 ("if any Judge ... were to make a public utterance of such character as to be likely to impair the confidence of the public ... in the impartiality of the Court ... fair comment, would, so far from being a contempt of Court, be for the public benefit")
- ^ "Inside Business: IR changes bring unlikely alliances". ABC. 26 March 2006.