“Today the Australian Industry Group released its submission to the Inquiry into the Victorian On-demand Workforce. The submission highlights the many ways that digital technologies are altering the way people work, across virtually all industries. On-line platforms are very common and are increasingly a key part of the way that countless businesses provide services to their customers,” Australian Industry Group Chief Executive Innes Willox said today.
“Despite the highly visible nature and branding of many gig platform operators, the proportion of ‘gig workers’ in Australia is extremely small (less than half of 1% of the workforce). It is essential that ill-conceived changes to Australia’s workplace relations laws are not implemented based on the myth that the jobs of thousands of Australians are being threatened by ‘gig work’.
“The vast majority of employment and contracting relationships rely on Australia’s current workplace relations framework, including the flexibility of the existing common law tests which distinguish between employees and independent contractors. The existing framework should not be disturbed when the current framework provides strong protections to on-demand workers,” Mr Willox said.
