The Australian Labour party’s leader Anthony Albanese is promising workers a “better deal” with a suite of reforms to improve job security and provide minimum pay and entitlements to those in so-called insecure work, reports The Guardian. Labour is the main opposition party in Australia with 35% of the vote in the 2019 election behind the winning Liberal/National coalition which secured 42% of the vote. Albanese is calling for a process to set minimum pay in the gig economy. He says Labour wants portable leave entitlements, and will legislate a cap on rolling fixed-term contracts and a requirement for labour hire workers to receive the same pay as co-workers. In addition to opposing the Coalition’s industrial relations omnibus bill, Albanese has also outlined further ideas that could change the world of work.

These ideas include calling on the Fair Work Act to define casuals and aim for job security. For this idea, Labour would legislate a new test to determine when a worker can be classified as a casual. Another idea is ‘Same job same pay in labour hire’ in which Labour would guarantee if workers are employed by a labour hire company and are performing the same job they will receive the same pay as people who are directly employed by the entity in which they’re placed, similar to AWD regulations in Europe.