wage, the Arbitration Court could order the employer to pay more than the minimum. Isaacs & Higgins JJ maintained their rejection of the reserved powers doctrine, and their dissent from the Sawmillers case. Isaacs J held that arbitration that imposes new obligations was not the exercise of judicial power, but rather legislation. The binding nature of an award arose because of the federal law, thus if there was inconsistency, the federal law prevailed. The judgment of Isaacs J argues from the premise that the fundamental basis of the Australian legal system was as an enactment of the Imperial Parliament. On the question of inconsistency, Isaacs J set out what would become the cover the field test. Higgins J similarly held that a rule of conduct prescribed by the Arbitration Court was given the character of a law by the federal Conciliation and Arbitration Act. On the question of inconsistency, Higgins J adopted the same test as the majority, whether it was impossible to obey both laws. R v Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration; Ex parte Whybrow and Co (No 2) After the High Court gave the answers to the stated case, the Arbitration Court made an award in accordance with the proposed minutes. The boot manufacturing employers applied to the High Court for a writ of prohibition compelling the Arbitration Court, the President who was a judge of the High Court, and the union to appear before the High Court to show cause why they should not be prohibited from further proceeding on the award. Because Higgins J was a defendant to the application he did not hear the case. The grounds for the application concerned the constitutional power of the Australian parliament to provide for compulsory arbitration and common rule awards; whether the "paper dispute" established an interstate industrial dispute whether the award went beyond the matters in dispute. Prohibition The union objected to the application for prohibition, arguing that the order sought was an exercise of the High Court's appellate jurisdiction, and not its original jurisdiction. The significance of the objection was that the Constitution permits the Australian Parliament to limit appeals to the High Court, but not to limit the exercise of its original jurisdiction. The Conciliation and Arbitration Act provided at s 31 that "No award of the Court shall be challenged, appealed against, reviewed, quashed, or called in question in any other Court on