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A full Federal Court has clarified the extent to which employers must investigate alternative roles for workers caught up in restructures, finding that a mining company had an obligation to assess whether employees could replace already-engaged contractors before making them redundant.

Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke has agreed to change the way the Closing Loopholes Bill regulates gig economy workers, including a requirement that the FWC set minimum standards that reflect their engagement as independent contractors, while the Senate has today passed single-issue IR Bills split-off from the legislation.

Resources employer group AREEA says the Loopholes Bill's labour hire provisions lack a proper exemption for specialist contractors and will kill off the use of on-hire workers, despite Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke's assurances that the drafting would take "very full account" of its concerns.

A leading IR lawyer says the Albanese Government's third tranche casuals provisions are a win for employers as they will provide "considerable certainty", but he predicts an ambiguous independent contracting test will produce "windfall gains and windfall losses".

A leading labour law academic says the drafting of the Albanese Government's latest swathe of IR changes is "complex" but the reformed approach to defining an employee is "really significant" and new labour hire provisions are likely to prevent employers from evading agreements via outsourcing.

In finding a DoorDash food delivery driver is an independent contractor, the FWC has held that the "issues of control, delegation and equipment" are almost identical to that in a landmark ruling involving the now-defunct Deliveroo platform.

The Federal Court is today expected to discontinue a mooted $1 billion class action accusing a now-folded workforce management company of misclassifying Telstra technicians as subcontractors, while Shine Lawyers says the workers cannot access the FEG scheme because of the High Court's Jamsek and Personnel Contracting decisions.

IR Minister Tony Burke says the Albanese Government is considering a multi-factor test as part of its Same Job, Same Pay proposals, after resources employer group AREEA argued this is "critical" to delineate between "traditional labour hire" and other arrangements.

Qantas has hit back at ACTU research detailing the labour hire "loopholes" it allegedly uses to suppress wages and conditions to the extent that on-hire managers, after more than a decade on the job, are earning less than the directly-engaged workers they supervise.

The MBA is today calling on the Albanese Government to give a firm undertaking to exclude industries outside the gig-economy before introducing legislation targeting employee-like forms of work, after IR Minister Tony Burke sought to hose down concerns it leaves the door open for a far broader remit.