Interesting to see Tony Burke quoted in AFR today saying about...

Interesting to see Tony Burke quoted in AFR today saying about Airtasker that it will be excluded from government’s laws for minimum gig worker conditions.

Mr Burke argued marketplace app Airtasker would not be covered as he had not seen anyone on the platform who “could possibly satisfy that definition”.

But he also explained the test was not based on whether workers set their own rates as this would exclude emerging apps like Uber competitor inDrive.

“If we met minimum standards and didn’t capture apps like that, effectively all the ones that most people will have on their phones at the moment – Uber and the like – would have minimum standards, and they would be facing a competitor for the exact same customers that was able to undercut because they found a different way of doing the algorithm,” he said.

“There would be economic pressure on all of those platforms to make the same jump and evade.”

Airtasker chief executive Tim Fung said he was “really pleased that Tony Burke and the government has a good grasp of the different kinds of marketplaces and models that exist”, saying his app was different as users defined their price and job scope.

“I think that this legislation is really targeting those sorts of platforms where there’s a little bit more control placed on workers as opposed to flexibility,” he said.

https://www.copyright link/work-and-careers/workplace/consumers-will-pay-extra-for-gig-economy-shake-up-20230831-p5e0wn