The contract said contractor. The tribunal looked at what actually happened
A remote worker hired as an independent contractor was really an employee, Australia's workplace tribunal ruled - letting her dismissal case proceed.
The Fair Work Commission handed down the decision on July 7, 2026, in a case that turned on a question plenty of employers get wrong: does calling someone a contractor actually make them one?
The worker signed on in July 2025 under an "Appointment Setting Services Agreement." On paper, everything said contractor. She had her own ABN, invoiced monthly, sorted her own tax and superannuation, used her own laptop and phone, got no leave, and was free to work for others. She was paid commission, starting at 5%.
Then the role grew. She shifted from booking appointments to also closing sales, and her commission climbed to 15%. By the time the company ended the arrangement on October 28, 2025 - giving two weeks' notice and locking her out of its systems that same day - she was working around five hours a day.
She took the matter to the Commission under s.365 of the Fair Work Act, alleging she had been dismissed for exercising workplace rights. The company's answer was blunt: she was never an employee, so there was no dismissal and no case to hear.
Settling that threshold question meant applying s.15AA of the Act. That provision, added after the High Court's Personnel Contracting and Jamsek decisions, tells the Commission to weigh the "real substance,...
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