Hiring a Freelance Copywriter in Australia: The Control Problem

When you hire a freelance copywriter in Australia, 2 legal tests about control pull you in opposite directions. The first is section 15AA of the Fair Work Act, in force since 26 August 2024. It decides if your writer is a contractor or an employee. It looks at how the work really runs day to day, as well as what the contract says. The second is AHPRA's rule on who is responsible for an ad. If you approve the content, or ask someone to draft it, AHPRA treats you as the "advertiser", and you carry the risk. So you need to control the words without controlling the worker. Most hiring briefs get that backwards.

What does a freelance copywriter in Australia actually cost?

A freelance copywriter costs you between about $50 and $500 a page. That wide range tells you more about the writer than about the market. I break down the real rates in a separate post on what a freelance copywriter costs in 2026.

This post is about the part that never shows up on the invoice.

When you hire a freelance copywriter in Australia, you take on 2 legal questions at once. The first is whether that person is really a contractor. The second is who answers for the words once they go live.

Both questions turn on the same idea, which is control. The law settles both, whatever your contract calls the setup. And the honest answer to one can hurt your answer to the other.

Almost no hiring guide covers either question. So here they are, taken from the 2 documents that decide them.

Is your freelance copywriter a contractor or an employee?

The law decides this, whatever your contract says. And the way it decides changed on 26 August 2024.

That is the day section 15AA of the Fair Work Act 2009 came into force. It was added by the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No. 2) Act 2024. The section reads:

"whether an individual is an employee of a person within the ordinary meaning of that expression ... is to be determined by ascertaining the real substance, practical reality and true nature of the relationship between the individual and the person."

In plain words, the law looks at how things really work between you. Subsection (2) is where the detail sits. It says you must look at:

"not only to the terms of the contract governing the relationship, but also to other factors relating to the totality of the relationship including, but not limited to, how the contract is performed in practice."

So the contract counts, and so does what you both actually do. The Act is unusually open about why it exists. A note under the section says it "was enacted as a response to the decisions of the High Court of Australia in CFMMEU v Personnel Contracting Pty Ltd [2022] HCA 1 and ZG Operations Australia Pty Ltd v Jamsek [2022] HCA 2".

Those 2 cases from 2022 had made the written contract almost the only thing that mattered. Section 15AA takes that back. Your contract still counts. So does everything you actually do.

For your copywriter, that means the day to day is evidence. The Fair Work Ombudsman calls this the whole of relationship test. Run through it honestly:

• Do you set their working hours?
• Do you tell them which task to do in which order?
• Do they have to attend your team standup?
• Do they work on your laptop, your logins and your software?
• Do you pay by the hour with no set piece of work to deliver?
• Are you their only client?

No single answer sinks you. But if you stack up enough of them, the setup stops looking like a contract for services.

What happens if you get the classification wrong?

You lose the argument, and it is up to you to show you acted reasonably.

Section 357 of the Fair Work Act says you must not tell a worker their job is a contract for services when it is really employment. A court can order you to pay for breaking it. Section 358 stops you dismissing an employee so you can rehire them as a contractor for the same work. Section 359 stops you making a statement you know is false to push someone into a contractor setup.

The defence got harder. Section 357(2) says the ban does not apply:

"if the employer proves that, when the representation was made, the employer reasonably believed that the contract was a contract for services."

Look closely at the verbs. You must prove it. Your belief must be reasonable.

Before 27 February 2024, the test asked if you did not know and were not reckless. That was a question about what was in your head. Now the test asks if your belief holds up when someone else looks at it. Kingston Reid described it at the time as a move from a personal test to an outside one.

Section 357(3) adds that when judging if your belief was reasonable, "regard must be had to the size and nature of the employer's enterprise". In plain words, a big business gets less slack. A national group with an HR team gets less benefit of the doubt than a 2 person practice.

One thing to keep straight. Everything above is the Fair Work Act. Tax, super, payroll tax and workers compensation each have their own tests. Getting one right does not settle the others.

Can a freelance copywriter opt out of the test?

Sometimes they can, but only above a set income level.

Section 15AB lets a worker give an opt out notice, saying section 15AA does not apply to the relationship. Section 15AC sets out what that does. Section 15AD lets them take it back later.

The conditions are tight:

• You may only tell a contractor about this option if you think their earnings for that work "exceed the contractor high income threshold".
• The opt out notice itself must say that the worker thinks the same thing.
• The worker can give only one opt out notice for that relationship.
• If you gave them the notice first, they have 21 days to respond.

The income level is not written into the Act. Section 15C says it is "the amount prescribed by, or worked out in the manner prescribed by, the regulations". That means it is set elsewhere and can change. Check the current figure with the Fair Work Ombudsman before you rely on it.

For most freelance copywriting work, this will not help you. A per page or per project brief is usually nowhere near that level. Setting up the working relationship properly is your real protection.

Who is liable when a copywriter writes something AHPRA does not allow?

You are, if you are the one who published it.

Health businesses get this half wrong most often, so here is the source text. It comes from section 3.2 of the AHPRA "Guidelines for advertising a regulated health service", issued 14 December 2020:

"Anyone (person, business or corporate entity) who advertises a regulated health service, is considered an advertiser and must comply with the advertising requirements of the National Law."

Then it names who that is:

"The person or entity who controls part or all of the advertising (i.e. who authorises the content) is the advertiser."

It also spells out what control means. You have control of an ad if "they publish or authorise content or direct someone to publish or draft content (including a third party, staff member or marketing agency)".

Read the middle of that line again. It says direct someone to draft content. A copywriter drafts content. So if you brief one, you are the one AHPRA holds responsible.

The guidelines then close the loop in one sentence: "Advertisers are responsible for their advertising, so they need to check any content produced by others on their behalf."

Your copywriter may also be responsible in their own right. That takes nothing off your plate. It adds a second name to the list, and yours stays on it. I have written about how this works with an agency in does your agency understand AHPRA.

The cost of getting it wrong went up sharply in 2022.

Section 133 of the National Law is the rule under all of this. It bans misleading health ads, and it applies to anyone who advertises a health service. It has never been limited to practitioners. For the wider picture, start with the AHPRA advertising guidelines explained. Then read the rules on patient testimonials.

Why do the two control tests point in opposite directions?

Both tests are built on the word control, and each one wants the opposite thing from you.

Section 15AA looks at how much you direct the person. The more you control how, when and where the work gets done, the more it looks like employment.

AHPRA section 3.2 looks at how much you direct the content. If you approve it, or ask someone to draft it, you are responsible for the ad. You have to check what comes back.

So the Fair Work Act rewards you for stepping back from the worker. The National Law punishes you for stepping back from the words.

Put side by side, the way through fits in one line. Control the work, and leave the worker free.

Approve every word before it goes live. Keep a record of who approved what, and when. Then leave the person's calendar, tools and way of working alone.

That sounds obvious written down. But it is the opposite of how most businesses run a freelancer. The usual pattern is loose sign off and tight supervision. The writer sits in your standups and uses your logins, and the copy goes live because a deadline arrived. That pattern fails both tests at once.

How do you brief a freelance copywriter without creating an employee?

Move every bit of control from the person to the work they deliver. These 8 steps do most of the job.

1. Scope by deliverable. Agree on ten pages, instead of ten days.
2. Pay per project or per page. An hourly rate with no set output puts you in the weakest spot.
3. Leave the calendar alone. Do not set their hours or make them attend a standup.
4. Let them use their own tools. They use their own machine, software and process.
5. Do not become their only client. A contractor who works only for you is already halfway to being staff.
6. Put the compliance standard in the brief. Name the rules the copy has to pass. Ask for the rule behind every claim.
7. Approve every word before it goes live. This is the AHPRA half. You must do it, and it does not count against you on the Fair Work side.
8. Keep the approval record. Note who signed off, on which version, on what date.

People skip steps six to eight most often. They are also the only three that would help you if AHPRA ever contacted you.

One honest caveat. This is general information about Australian law, and it is not legal advice. Whether someone is staff depends on the facts of your setup. What you owe on ads depends on what you actually published. If real money or real risk is involved, talk to an employment lawyer. My work is the copy and the compliance review, and I say so plainly in my guide to hiring a compliance copywriter.

Does hiring a copywriter overseas change any of this?

It changes one half and leaves the other exactly where it was.

The Fair Work Act covers businesses in Australia that fall within its scope. Picture an overseas contractor who runs their own business and uses their own equipment. They have other clients and invoice per project. That is a very different picture from a local worker sitting in your daily standup. It does not mean you are automatically safe, and the answer depends on your facts. Get advice if the amounts are large.

The AHPRA half does not move at all. If you are the Australian practice publishing the page, you are responsible for the ad. Section 133 attaches to the ad, and the writer's postcode does not change that. Where the copy was drafted makes no difference to who answers for it.

That brings it all back to one question. Does the person writing your copy know the rules it has to pass?

That is the job I do. I work from Delhi, per project, on my own tools. Every brief names the rules the copy has to pass, whether that is AHPRA or the TGA. Every piece comes with the evidence for its claims. If you are comparing this with an agency, I have looked at both in freelance copywriter versus health writing agency.