H. B. Higgins

Australian politician

Henry Bournes Higgins KC (30 June 1851 – 13 January 1929) was an Australian lawyer, politician, and judge.He served on the High Court of Australia from 1906 until his death in 1929, after briefly serving as Attorney-General of Australia in 1904.

Higgins was born in what is now Northern Ireland.He and his family emigrated to Australia when he was 18, and he found work as a schoolteacher while studying law part-time at the University of Melbourne.

He was admitted to the Victorian Bar in 1876, and built up a substantial practice specialising in equity law.Higgins came to public attention as a prominent supporter of Irish Home Rule.

He was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1894, and represented Victoria at the Australasian Federal Convention, where he helped draft the new federal constitution.

He nonetheless opposed the final draft, making him one of only two delegates to the convention to campaign against federation.

In 1901, Higgins was elected to the new federal parliament as a member of the Protectionist Party.He was sympathetic to the labour movement, and in 1904 briefly served as Attorney-General in the Labor Party minority government led by Chris Watson.

In 1906, Prime Minister Alfred Deakin decided to expand the High Court bench from three to five members, nominating Higgins and Isaac Isaacs to the court.

Higgins was usually in the minority in his early years on the court, but in later years the composition of the court changed and he was more often in the majority.

He also served as president of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration from 1907 to 1921.In that capacity, he wrote the decision in the influential Harvester case, holding that a legislative provision for a "fair and reasonable" wage effectively required a living wage.

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