Gig platforms and labour-hire hosts already hold the full safety duty, and the new gig rules were built around that fact

The worker definition does the work

Section 7 of the model WHS Act defines a worker as a person who "carries out work in any capacity" for a person conducting a business or undertaking, and then lists the capacities: employee, contractor or subcontractor, an employee of a contractor or subcontractor, "an employee of a labour hire company who has been assigned to work in the person's business or undertaking", outworkers, apprentices, work experience students and volunteers. There is no gig carve-out because the definition was written so none would be needed. Safe Work Australia's guidance draws the conclusion for the delivery economy: "A delivery rider is considered a worker if they 'carry out work for' the platform whose app is used to provide the delivery services and/or the food outlet whose food/drink is delivered", and as PCBUs, the platforms and outlets "must do whatever is reasonably practicable to ensure the health and safety of their workers". A contractor can be a PCBU and a worker at the same time; being your own boss on paper does not switch off someone else's duty to you.

Shared duties cannot be contracted away

Gig and labour-hire work both put more than one business over the same worker, and the model Act plans for exactly that. Under section 16, more than one person can hold the same duty concurrently, and "each duty holder must comply with that duty to the standard required by this Act even if another duty holder has the same duty", discharged to the extent of each holder's capacity to influence and control the matter. Under section 46, duty holders who share a matter must, so far as is reasonably practicable, "consult, co-operate and co-ordinate activities" with each other, and failing to is itself an offence carrying a monetary penalty. Safe Work Australia's labour hire guidance states the consequence in one line: "Labour hire PCBUs and host PCBUs cannot contract out of or transfer their WHS duties to each other or another party."

For labour hire, the guidance then divides the practical load. The host PCBU, as the business at the workplace, must provide adequate facilities, first aid and an emergency plan. The labour-hire agency must verify the host is actually providing a safe working environment, ensure workers arrive with the right qualifications and licences and receive a safety induction and any extra training the work needs, supply suitable PPE with instruction on its use, and agree processes with the host for notifying the regulator of notifiable incidents, consulting workers before decisions that affect them, and monitoring conditions as they change. An agency that places workers and never checks the site again is not discharging its half of the duty. Several jurisdictions add a labour-hire licensing scheme on top; Safe Work Australia's guidance flags the schemes and leaves them to each state to define.

The 2024 gig reforms deliberately left WHS where it was

From 26 August 2024, the Fair Work Act's Closing Loopholes changes created "employee-like workers": contractors performing digital platform work who meet at least two of three markers (low bargaining power, pay at or below comparable employees, little authority over how they work), per the Fair Work Ombudsman. The Fair Work Commission can now set binding minimum standards orders for them on payment terms, deductions, insurance, record-keeping and representation, and from 26 February 2025 platforms covered by the Digital Labour Platform Deactivation Code must follow a fair process before deactivating a worker. The detail that matters for safety readers: minimum standards orders cannot include "workplace health and safety matters that are dealt with by other federal, state and territory laws". The industrial reform was drafted around the existing WHS coverage, not as a substitute for it. The WHS duty to a rider did not begin in 2024; it began when the WHS Acts commenced.

The genuine gap is compensation, and it is being worked on

Where gig work does fall through a floor is after an injury. Safe Work Australia's workers' compensation page on the gig economy puts it plainly: "Gig workers are generally engaged as independent contractors and typically do not have access to workers' compensation, unlike employees performing the same kind of work." In October 2025 Safe Work Australia published a National policy approach to workers' compensation and the gig economy, endorsed by a majority of WHS ministers, built on five principles, including that compensation coverage "should be considered" for platform gig workers and that the digital labour platform "would be the most appropriate party" to carry employer obligations such as premiums and return-to-work. It is a policy approach, not a law: each scheme decides its own implementation, so coverage will arrive jurisdiction by jurisdiction, the same way every harmonisation story on this masthead moves.

One standing caveat for multi-state operators: the model Act's language binds the eight jurisdictions that adopted it. Victoria runs its own OHS Act with its own duty structure, so the section numbers above do not map there, though Victorian duties reach contractors by their own route; the full jurisdiction map is in our WHS laws explainer.