In Victoria, the premises decide the rules for cleaners
In Victoria, the Labour Hire Authority’s line turns on the premises: a business that supplies workers to clean a commercial premises needs a labour hire licence, and a business that cleans domestic premises does not.
The Portable Long Service Authority’s scheme for contract cleaning has counted time in the industry since 1 July 2019, so a covered worker’s years in the industry follow them from employer to employer.
General information, from the official pages linked at the foot of each page.
Filled: a labour hire licence. A business that supplies workers to clean a commercial premises needs a labour hire licence, the Labour Hire Authority says.
Outlined: no licence. A cleaning business needs no labour hire licence for a home, the Authority says, and a place used as someone’s residence is not part of a commercial premises.
The fine diagonal: long service. For a covered worker in contract cleaning, the portable scheme counts the industry’s years, not the employer’s.
The tally: when a home pays its cleaner directly. The ATO rule for a domestic or private worker: eligible for super guarantee if they work for you more than 30 hours in a week, regardless of pay.
Home or business
The two premises divide the guides: two for a home, two for an office or a shop, one of them on the long service a covered contract cleaner builds, and one that crosses both, on what a customer is owed.
At a home
- Cleaning a home: what the household is and is notWhy domestic premises sit outside the labour hire licence, what a directly paid cleaner changes, and where the ATO super rule looks in.
- When a cleaner’s week at a home passes 30 hoursThe ATO rule for domestic or private workers: the hours in one week, and the payday clock once the rule is met.
At an office or shop
- Hiring office cleaners in Victoria: the labour hire licenceThe licence the Labour Hire Authority draws around cleaners supplied to an office or a shop, the exceptions it names, and how a host checks one.
- Long service for contract cleaners in VictoriaThe portable scheme for contract cleaning: time in the industry instead of one employer, the seven-year mark, and the quarterly employer clock.
Across both premises
Where a labour hire licence is checked
The Authority keeps a register of licensed providers, and its own guidance to hosts, and to providers that subcontract cleaning work to other businesses, is to use the register and confirm that the businesses being engaged hold a licence.
The Authority also runs a tool called Follow my providers, which can alert a subscriber when a provider loses its licence, or has it suspended. The Authority encourages those at the head of a supply chain to look over their arrangements and make sure the businesses cleaning their commercial premises each hold one.
Unlicensed operation carries published consequences. The penalties the Authority publishes are more than $590,000 for a business and more than $145,000 for an individual, and they can apply to supplying labour hire services without a licence, to advertising them without one, or to a host business that engages an unlicensed provider.
A period of unlicensed operation can also be counted when a licence application is assessed; the Authority says that can shorten the licence granted and add oversight. Its compliance attention is on cleaning: it uses data and intelligence to identify businesses that may need a licence, and it asks anyone with evidence that a commercial cleaning business is operating without a licence, or advertising without one, to send in a report.