Australia Orders A$31.30 Minimum Pay for 250,000 Gig Delivery Workers

Australia's industrial umpire on Tuesday ordered food and grocery delivery platforms to pay workers at least A$31.30 an hour, a floor roughly 18% above the national minimum wage that will cover about 250,000 people from August 17.

The Fair Work Commission ruling requires platforms to pay the minimum rate for "engaged time" – the period from accepting a delivery job to completing it. Companies must also provide a reasonable minimum level of personal accident insurance, though the Commission stopped short of specifying an exact coverage threshold, giving platforms some latitude in how they structure that protection. Workers remain responsible for their own third-party vehicle insurance.

The order stems from legislation passed by Australia's centre-left Labor government in 2023 and 2024 that gave gig workers greater rights to negotiate minimum pay and conditions. Transport Workers Union national secretary Michael Kaine called the standards "world leading" and said the union intends to build on them over time. In a rare show of alignment, Kaine's statement was issued jointly with Uber Eats and DoorDash. Both companies said the changes demonstrate that stronger protections and the flexibility valued by gig workers can go hand in hand.

The Australian reform lands alongside a broader international push on gig worker rights. In June, the International Labour Organization adopted its first binding employment standards for platform workers, though those standards still require ratification by individual governments before taking effect. Australia's move, delivering concrete minimum pay and insurance protections ahead of that framework being formally adopted elsewhere, positions the country as an early mover on an issue many other jurisdictions are still only beginning to legislate.

From a macro perspective, the reform increases the delivery sector's aggregate wage bill by a meaningful amount. The A$31.30 rate sits well above the national minimum of A$26.44. Platforms face a decision on how much of that added cost to absorb internally versus pass through via delivery fees or service charges. Any pass-through would likely filter into services inflation gradually rather than as a one-off shock, given the sector's weight in household spending.

Set against that modest cost, the reform delivers a substantial improvement in pay certainty and safety-net coverage for workers who have for years carried the risks of gig work without the protections typically afforded to employees. Kaine said gig workers had been left outside Australia's workplace systems for far too long. The Commission's order gives them a floor – and a date.