Classification: employee

**(b) Controlling approach and leading case:**
The High Court held in *CFMMEU v Personnel Contracting Pty Ltd* [2022] HCA 1 (decided together with *ZG Operations Australia Pty Ltd v Jamsek* [2022] HCA 2) that where the parties' relationship is comprehensively committed to a wholly written contract that is not a sham, the characterisation of the relationship is determined by the **legal rights and obligations established by the terms of the written contract**, not by a wide-ranging review of how the relationship played out in practice (the old "multifactorial" conduct-based inquiry is displaced). Critically, the **label** the parties attach ("self-employed contractor") is not decisive and cannot alter the true character of the rights created. Here, the contractual rights — the company's right to control how, when and where he works, his obligation to work as directed, no right to delegate, no business of his own — mean he works *in* the company's business rather than on his own account. On the contract's terms he is an employee, exactly as the labourer in *Personnel Contracting* was held to be.

**(c) One practical consequence for the engaging business:**
The labour-hire company owes him employee entitlements — for example, it must pay at least the applicable modern award/minimum wage rates and accrue paid leave under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) and National Employment Standards (and faces exposure to back-pay claims and penalties for misclassification). (Other consequences include compulsory superannuation contributions, PAYG withholding, and workers' compensation coverage.)