Classification: employee

(b) The controlling approach is the one the High Court adopted in CFMMEU v Personnel Contracting Pty Ltd [2022] HCA 1 (decided alongside ZG Operations Australia Pty Ltd v Jamsek). Where the parties' relationship is governed by a comprehensive written contract that is wholly in writing and not a sham, the characterisation of the worker as employee or contractor is determined by the legal rights and obligations established by the terms of that contract, not by a broad "multifactorial" review of how the relationship played out in practice afterwards. The label the parties attach ("self-employed contractor") does not control; what matters is the substance of the contractual rights. Here the contract gives the company the right to control how, when and where the work is done, the worker cannot delegate, supplies no significant equipment and has no business of his own - so, on the contract's terms, he works in the company's business and subject to its control, making him an employee (mirroring the outcome for Mr McCourt in Personnel Contracting itself).

(c) One practical consequence: as an employer, the labour-hire company must pay superannuation guarantee contributions for the worker (and more broadly meets employee obligations such as PAYG withholding, National Employment Standards entitlements like paid leave, and exposure to unfair dismissal claims), with back-pay and penalty risk if it has treated him as a contractor.