Great maritime strike 1891: the Australian shearers' strike 1891: 16 small banks and building societies collapsed in Melbourne 1892: the Broken Hill miners' strike 1892: 133 limited companies went into liquidation in Victoria alone 1893: a major international depression and the speculative property boom of the 1880s, led to the Australian banking crisis of 1893 and a serious economic depression. 11 commercial banks failed or temporarily closed to avoid a run, including the National Bank of Australasia and the Commercial Bank of Australia. On 1 May, the Victoria government implemented a five-day bank holiday to ameliorate the panic. 1894: recovery from the crisis began. Some reforms to regulations and laws were made to try to prevent future financial abuses. 1900–1939 In 1901, the first federal government formed by the Protectionist Party. In 1904, the Australian Labor Party forms the Commonwealth government, the first labour movement in the world to attain government. In 1907, the Harvester case ruling that established the right to a basic wage, a 'fair and reasonable' minimum wage for unskilled workers of 7 shillings. In 1910, the federal government introduced a national currency, the Australian pound. Monetary policy ensured that the Australian pound was fixed in value to the pound sterling, and as long as Britain was on the gold standard, so was Australia. In 1914, the pound sterling was removed from the gold standard, but when it was returned to the gold standard in 1925, the sudden increase in its value, imposed by the nominal gold price, unleashed crushing deflation. Both the initial 1914 inflation and the subsequent 1926 deflation had far-reaching economic effects throughout the British Empire, including Australia, and the rest of the world. In 1929, as an emergency measure during the Great Depression, Australia left the gold standard, resulting in a devaluation relative to sterling. A variety of pegs to sterling applied until December 1931, when the government set a rate of £1 Australian = 16 shillings sterling (£1·5s Australian = £1 sterling; A£1.25 = £1 sterling). While wool-growing remained at the centre of economic activity, a variety of new goods, such as wheat, dairy and other agriculturally-based produce, became part of Australian exports. It was in then that the latter started contributing more to economic growth than wool production. Part of that emergence of other sources of economic expansion came from technological progress, such as disease-resistant wheat and refrigerated shipping. The development