Dependent Contractors: Can the Test from Stevens v Brodribb Protect Workers who are Quasi-Employees?

Abstract

Working from the presumption that the law of employment is grounded in a contract made ostensibly between two equal partners, the Australian tests for distinguishing an employee from an independent contractor have focused on the obligations under the contract. Where the fundamental term of an employment contract was the payment of wages in exchange for the performance of work at the direction of the master, freedom from the principal's direction or right to direct1 became allimportant in the characterisation of a contract independent of control by a principal. However with the growing variety of work relationships an employer's right to "control" the employee no longer was a sufficient test.