Australia's food delivery riders get an hourly floor today, but not employee status

An Expert Panel of the Fair Work Commission made an order on 11 August 2026 that from today puts a legal earnings floor under Australian food delivery riders. The decision, Application by Transport Workers' Union of Australia (MS2024/3) [2026] FWCFB 211, was issued in Sydney by Justice Hatcher, Vice President Asbury and Commissioner Connolly under section 536JY of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). It creates the Interim On-Demand Delivery Employee-like Worker Minimum Standards Order, operative 17 August 2026. It does not make anyone an employee.

That is the point of the instrument, and the reason it is worth reading closely. The order sets minimum hourly rates for what it calls engaged time, the period running from acceptance of a job to its completion. Contemporaneous accounts of the rates put them at $31.30 an hour for bicycles and e-bikes, $31.80 for motorcycles and $32.00 for cars, with a further rise scheduled from 1 January 2027. Platforms average earnings over an earnings period they set, of up to 21 days, and pay a top up where a worker falls below the floor. The order also deals with personal accident insurance, vehicle repairs and expenses, fines, record keeping, consultation before significant change, dispute resolution, workplace delegate rights, unpaid time away and a Gig Worker Information Statement. Vehicles with a carrying capacity above one tonne are outside it.

The classification question sits underneath all of it. Section 536K(2) required the Panel to consider whether, on the whole, the people in the covered class are employee-like workers, a category created by the 2024 Closing Loopholes reforms and defined in section 15P of the Act. The Panel adopted the conclusion it had reached in its earlier decision of 8 July 2026, [2026] FWCFB 167, and tidied the drafting so that the order now says simply that an employee-like worker means an employee-like worker as defined in section 15P. Nothing in the order converts a rider into an employee. The framing offered by the then minister Tony Burke, quoted by academics writing on 12 August 2026, was that the reform turns a cliff into a ramp.

How it arrived matters. The Transport Workers' Union applied in 2024. Uber, trading through Portier Pacific Pty Ltd as Uber Eats, and DoorDash Technologies Australia both supported a consent order. The Panel held a five day hearing from 11 to 15 May 2026, published a notice of intent and a draft order on 8 July 2026, and closed submissions on 29 July. Of the parties who filed, only Amazon asked for a further hearing, and the Panel declined to hold one.

Most of the argument was about coverage. Amazon identified what it called a double predominance test and complained that the order did not say how predominance was to be measured. The Panel agreed the drafting repeated itself, and settled that predominance is assessed across the earnings period set by the platform, with the immediacy requirement applying on acceptance of a job. It rejected the submission by Australian Business Industrial and others that the words "as soon as practicable" blurred the line with last mile work, and it rejected the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry's proposal that coverage be confined to Uber and DoorDash, on the ground that no covered business had asked for it. On Amazon's grocery deliveries the Panel was blunt: in its view, Amazon has entered the on-demand market.

The disagreements the Panel did not resolve are the interesting ones. A rider, Glen Morris, submitted that the rates would not cover his costs, that $40.00 an hour was what the work actually required, and offered $35.00 plus GST as a compromise. Dr Cecilia Das identified three payment gaps in the definition of non-engaged time, including waiting before and after collection. Professor David Peetz and the Migrant Justice Institute also filed. The Panel refused nearly all of it, reasoning that section 536KAD would force a fresh notice of intent and a restarted consultation for any significant change, and that it did not want to disturb the position in which the union and the two platforms were content. It added the word "Interim" to the title to underscore the review to come.

So the floor covers the ride, not the wait for one. Time spent logged on waiting for an offer is unpaid; only waiting at the venue after accepting counts. That is a large hole in any comparison with an hourly wage, and it is the hole the review will have to look at.

What is not known is the size of the affected workforce. Reports on 12 August 2026 said hundreds of thousands, and no agreed count has been published. Nor is it known what the platforms will charge: in 2023 Uber warned of catastrophic job losses and price rises of 85 per cent, and DoorDash said prices could more than triple, and both then negotiated the order they had warned against. The last mile applications, MS2024/1 and MS2024/2, remain on foot, with Amazon among the parties contending the Commission lacks the power to make the union's draft orders.