Gig Economy

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (16:52): I move:

That this council calls on the government to refer to the South Australian Productivity Commission the operation and impacts of the gig economy in South Australia, requiring the commission to investigate and report to the government on matters including:

1. The emerging nature, incidence, scope and complexity of the gig economy and in particular digital platforms that offer labour hire, rideshare, disability and aged-care services or a goods and services delivery function;

2. The extent to which workplace health and safety laws and regulations currently apply to digital platform businesses engaging workers as contractors, sole traders or employees;

3. Consider the role of workplace health and safety laws in creating a safe working environment for all South Australians with regard to the emerging ways of working in the gig economy;

4. The extent to which the Return to Work Act 2014 currently applies to digital platform businesses engaging workers as contractors, sole traders or employees;

5. The application of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No. 2) Bill 2023 (Cth) to South Australian legislation;

6. The taxation regime that applies to the gig economy at both a federal and state level, including the recent decision of Uber v Chief Commissioner of Revenue NSW;

7. Experience of other jurisdictions, whether that be in Australia or overseas to identify potential opportunities for reform to ensure that equitable arrangements exist for platform providers to contribute to the community in which they operate, including the potential for gig economy businesses to pay payroll tax; and

8. Any other related matters.

This motion calls on the government to refer to the South Australian Productivity Commission the operation and impacts of the gig economy in South Australia, requiring the commission to investigate and report on a range of matters. I will not go through all of them because they are quite clearly detailed in the motion. I think one of the key elements that I am interested in is around payroll tax and the potential of whether or not these businesses, gig economy businesses, should contribute payroll tax.

This was a key issue that came up in the inquiry into the gig economy that the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos initiated and chaired initially during her time in the parliament. You may recall I then took over the chairing of the committee towards the end of the committee's life. One of the key recommendations was looking at this issue of payroll tax and what that means for the gig economy.

We did receive a number of submissions from stakeholders, and unions in particular, that said it is not fair that businesses that have fixed employment arrangements, or traditional employment style arrangements, have to pay payroll tax and yet those that operate off these platforms, like Uber for instance, are not subject to the same payroll tax requirements.

I think the Productivity Commission should consider this question. There may be the potential to alleviate some of the costs that are paid by other businesses, for instance, were these gig economy businesses required to pay payroll tax. I do not know how much money such an arrangement would generate. These are the sorts of things the Productivity Commission could investigate.

I think the other element that is really important here is requiring the Productivity Commission to look at the role of workplace health and safety laws in creating a safe work environment for South Australians who are working in the gig economy. There are also some elements here that look at fair work legislation and also the complexity of the gig economy and what that means for labour hire, rideshare, disability, aged-care services and the like.

I think this will be a really interesting piece of work that the Productivity Commission could undertake and I hope that members of parliament will support it and that this is an issue the commission takes up and considers worthy of investigation.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: Mr President, I draw your attention to the state of the room.

A quorum having being formed: