He proposed the contractor deal himself - then argued he'd been an employee all along
A remote sales contractor said his boss sacked him. The Fair Work Commission found he was never an employee - and never dismissed.
The Fair Work Commission dismissed a general protections application on August 28, 2026, after finding the man had been an independent contractor, not an employee, of a small digital marketing agency. General protections cases deal with claims that a worker was let go for using a workplace right. Because the Commission found no employment relationship, there was no dismissal for it to consider, and the case went no further.
The worker never applied for the job on offer. The agency had advertised a casual appointment-setter role. Instead of applying, he booked a call through the company's website and pitched himself for something bigger - running its entire sales function. In his first message he said he ran sales "like a system."
The Commission had one question to settle first: was he an employee at all? Under section 15AA of the Fair Work Act, that depends on "the real substance, practical reality and true nature of the relationship" - the whole arrangement, not just the paperwork.
Much of it pointed to a contractor. He had asked to be engaged as one, telling the director it made "dipping out of the country when I choose to easier." He billed through his own ABN, the number sole traders use to invoice clients. He worked for other businesses during the engagement. He chose his own hours, picking the call windows he thought worked best, and worked from wherever he liked, including overseas in Southeast Asia. And the two had agreed he would share in the agency's revenue once it became profitable.
Some things pointed the other way. He worked inside the company's systems - its messaging app, CRM, shared drives and a company email address. He had no business insurance, no staff and no brand of his own. He received no payslips, no superannuation and no leave.
The worker argued the agency controlled him - watching his start time, tracking his call volume, setting rosters. The Commission was not persuaded. It found the hours were his own proposal, and that the director's monitoring came late in the engagement, prompted by concern about output rather than control over how the work was done. Keeping an eye on results to protect a commercial interest, it found, is not the same as directing the work.
The Commission also noted the worker had not disclosed that he proposed the contractor arrangement or the revenue-share plan, and found he "was not completely candid." Where the two accounts differed, it preferred the director's evidence, which was supported by call recordings and messages. On the missing superannuation and leave, it gave them little independent weight, saying such arrangements often just reflect one side's view of the relationship.
The decision turned on a point that matters for any HR team using remote or offshore contractors: classification follows the substance of the arrangement, not its title. A worker who invoices through an ABN, sets his own hours, takes on other clients and negotiates a share of revenue can be a contractor even while using the company's tools and answering its messages. The agency ended the contract in December 2025, and the application was dismissed.
