Which phrase was central to the Australian eight-hour-day movement linked with Labour Day?

“Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest” was central to Australia’s eight-hour-day movement.

The slogan divided the twenty-four-hour day into three equal parts. It expressed a demand for limits on exhausting work schedules during the Industrial Revolution, when many laborers worked long hours with little legal protection.

Australian stonemasons in Melbourne won an important eight-hour-day victory in 1856 after a march and work stoppage. The reform was not immediately universal: different occupations and regions gained shorter hours at different times. Even so, the achievement became a major symbol of Australian labor history.

Labour Day and related holidays later preserved that history in several Australian states. The slogan is sometimes shortened in casual references, but the full three-part wording is the canonical expression associated with the movement.