Dan Andrews (Victoria) declares war on small business – ‘destroy em’ they say!
Yesterday the Victorian Labor government released its report into the ‘gig economy.’ The 228-page report should be read as a declaration of war against self-employed, small business people across Victoria, and Australia. This is so because a key recommendation calls for laws that would effectively make self-employment illegal.
The recommendation (page 193 of the report) reads:
Recommendation 6
The Inquiry recommends that the FW Act be amended to
(a) codify work status on the face of relevant legislation (rather than relying on indistinct common law tests)
(b) clarify the work status test including by adopting the ‘entrepreneurial worker’ approach, so that those who work as part of another’s enterprise or business are ‘employees’ and autonomous, ’self-employed’ small business workers are covered by commercial laws.
This dumping of the common law definition of self-employment with the creation of a new test (called the ‘entrepreneurial test’) would smash small businesses in Victoria.
We’ll be calling on the Morrison Government to defend self-employed small business people from the Dan Andrews’ attack. But first we’ll get our full analysis done.
