When you work through a labour hire agency, the agency is your employer and the farm or site is only where you go. That single fact decides who owes you wages, super and entitlements. It is also why agency work is where those entitlements most often go missing.
Who is legally your employer?
The agency. It pays you, withholds your tax, owes your super, issues your payslips and carries the obligations under the award. The host business tells you what to do and where to stand, and owes you none of that.
That split is why agency arrangements go wrong more often than direct employment. When pay is short, the host says talk to the agency and the agency says the host sets the hours. Get in writing who your employer is before you start.
What does agency work get you?
Speed. Agencies place workers within days rather than weeks, cover several industries at once, and ask far less than a direct hiring process. That matters when you have just arrived and need work this week.
They also handle payroll across placements, so three different host sites in a month still produce one employer, one TFN declaration and one super fund rather than three of each. For someone moving around Australia that genuinely simplifies the year.
Where does agency work go wrong?
In deductions, mostly. Charging for accommodation and transport is lawful where it is agreed in writing and reasonable. It becomes wage theft the moment the deductions bring your effective rate below the minimum. Unitemised bundles taking a weekly figure for a room and a van seat are where exploitation in this sector concentrates.
The other failures: being put on an ABN as a contractor when the work is plainly employment, penalty rates never applied to weekend shifts, payslips not issued at all, and wages withheld until you complete a placement, which is not lawful at any point. If an agency tells you different rules apply to labour hire, that is untrue. The Fair Work Act applies in full.
What are you actually entitled to?
Exactly what you would get working directly for the host, with no discount for the arrangement. That means the award rate for the classification the host site work falls under, penalty rates for weekends, public holidays and overtime, and payslips within one working day of each pay.
- The award rate for the work, with the casual floor from 1 July 2026 being $33.05 an hour
- 12% super into your nominated fund
- Payslips itemising hours, rate, tax and deductions
- Written terms before you start a placement
- A safe workplace, which is the host's duty as well as the agency's
Is the agency licensed?
Check before you sign anything. Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory operate mandatory labour hire licensing schemes with public registers, and operating without a licence in those jurisdictions is an offence.
A licence is not a guarantee of good behaviour, but its absence in a state that requires one tells you a great deal quickly. Add the basics: a known super fund, written terms, itemised payslips, payment on the same day each cycle.
What should you ask before you sign?
Five questions, answered in writing rather than across a counter. An agency that will not answer them has told you something more useful than any answer would have been.
- Are you licensed, and in which state
- Who pays my super, and into which fund
- Which award and classification covers the work at the host site
- Will payslips be itemised by site and shift
- What deductions will be taken, and at what rate
Press on deductions. Transport and housing packages are where the money goes, and a figure quoted per week rather than per item is what makes underpayment hard to see.
What if you think you are being underpaid?
Work out your effective rate first, because that is the number any claim turns on. Total everything you were actually paid across a pay period, including top ups, divide it by the hours you genuinely worked including unpaid waiting time, and compare the result with the award rate for the work.
If it falls short, the claim is against the agency rather than the host. The Fair Work Ombudsman handles underpayment complaints without charge, unpaid super goes to the ATO instead, and being on a 417 or 462 visa weakens neither. Our guide to wage theft and recovery covers what evidence makes a claim work.