After a number of false starts, South Australia will recommence accepting labour hire applications from this Friday 14 June 2019.
The Labour Hire Licensing Act 2017 (SA) (the Act), which initially commenced on 1 March 2018, requires that any person or business who provides labour hire in South Australia must be licensed.
However, last year applications ceased being accepted while the South Australian government sought to make changes to the Act. However, these changes did not come to fruition with it now being announced that the SA government will officially recommence accepting applications come Friday.
All labour hire providers in SA now have until 31 August 2019 to lodge their license application.
Certain exemptions will apply (and therefore no license is required), including where:
- providing labour hire services is not a core function of the business – for example the core function of a doctor’s surgery is to provide health care services to the community, however, from time to time, a surgery may provide doctors or nursing staff to work in another surgery or hospital;
- businesses provide workers to another business within the same group of companies – for example a parent company supplying workers to a subsidiary company;
- businesses provide workers to work in another business where both businesses are part of the same franchise; and
- businesses provide workers to work in another business that are not part of a franchise but are collectively operating using the same banner, branding or trading name.
Please note that under this legislation not only is it a requirement to hold a valid license to provide labour hire services, it is also against the law to accept labour hire services from an unlicensed provider.
What about other states and territories?
Labour hire licensing legislation is already in place in Queensland and Victoria.
There are no developments on labour hire licensing schemes at a Federal level or in other states/territories, however both the ACT and Federal Governments have indicated that they will consider implementing a scheme in the future, particularly for ‘high risk’ industries such as horticulture, meat processing, cleaning and security.
