(a) **Classification: employee**

(b) **Controlling approach:** Where the parties have comprehensively committed the terms of their relationship to a written contract that is not a sham, the characterisation of the relationship is determined by the **legal rights and obligations established by the contract itself** (assessed at the time of formation), not by the parties' post-contractual conduct or how the work was actually performed. The label the contract uses ("self-employed contractor") is not determinative — the court examines the substance of the contractual rights. Here, the contract gives the labour-hire company the right to direct when, where and how the work is done (a right of control), requires the labourer's personal service with no right of delegation, and involves him serving the company's business rather than conducting a business of his own. Those contractual rights are characteristic of a contract of service. **Leading case:** *CFMMEU v Personnel Contracting Pty Ltd* [2022] HCA 1 (consistently with *ZG Operations Australia Pty Ltd v Jamsek* [2022] HCA 2).

(c) **Practical consequence:** The engaging business must make **superannuation guarantee contributions** for the worker (12% of ordinary time earnings in FY2025-26), with exposure to the superannuation guarantee charge if it fails to do so.