“Flexibility and innovation cannot be unlocked with collective bargaining or industry agreements; it can only be unlocked through enterprise agreements that are company-specific.”

Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke's department began talks on Friday with the major players in the gig economy, including transport providers Uber, Menulog, Deliveroo and DoorDash as well as services marketplace Airtasker and care platforms Mable and HireUp, which employs staff.

The talks will feed into the government's plan to give the Fair Work Commission power to award more rights to gig workers, who lack an entitlement to unfair dismissal protections, workers' compensation, superannuation from their employer, or a minimum wage.

None of the participants would comment, but multiple sources familiar with the meeting said a key theme was that the gig economy contained an array of businesses that operated in very different ways. Food delivery and disability care platforms, two attendees were described as saying, had different clients, services and prices despite all assigning work via an app. It made little sense to lump them together in the talks, participants said in the meeting.

Cash, the opposition spokeswoman, went further, saying self-employed people could set their own rates of pay, hours and way of working. "[Prime Minister Anthony] Albanese and the Labor Party have long demonised people who choose to be their own boss, and wish to effectively abolish the gig economy," she said in a statement.

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In a speech to transport union delegates on Friday in Sydney, Burke said the new system would operate like a “ramp” in which those closer to employees would get more of the rights that employees enjoy. And he hinted a minimum wage could be among them.

“[The previous government] didn’t even think these workers should get the minimum wage, and all too often gig workers are underpaid and exploited because the law hasn’t kept up with these new forms of work,” Burke said. “If you want to get wages moving, we have to stop systems that undercut minimum standards.”

But University of Sydney labour law professor Shae McCrystal said people who were genuinely in business for themselves had nothing to fear from reform proposals because there was a clear line between them and those dependent on a platform.

"It's not credible that someone delivery food in the gig economy is running their own small business," McCrystal said. "They're working for the business interests of those platform companies."

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