Do the casual employment rules apply to my seasonal staff?

Yes, from each person’s first day; what a season changes is when the deadlines land. If you run a seasonal property the calendar is familiar: hire in September and October, run flat out over summer, wind down around Anzac Day, much of the roster casual. Since August 2024 the Fair Work Act has carried a definition of casual employment that looks at how the work actually runs, and a pathway for a casual to ask for permanent work after six months. A season that starts in early October reaches six months in early April, while the season is still running.

We ran remote and regional properties for the better part of fifteen years before we started Wild Ops, and seasonal teams were part of that. What follows was checked on 24 October 2026 against the Act and the pages of the Fair Work Ombudsman, the agency that enforces it.

Did the casual employment rules change in 2026?

No. The current rules commenced on 26 August 2024. The last step in the changeover was 26 August 2025, when casuals at small businesses could first use the pathway, and nothing passed in 2026 touched them.

The 2024 changes did four things that matter to a seasonal employer:

• a new definition of casual employment in the Act;
• an employee choice pathway, where the casual gives notice and the employer responds, replacing the old casual conversion process;
• a repeating duty to give the Casual Employment Information Statement, the Fair Work Ombudsman’s standard document on those rights;
• a ban on dismissing a permanent employee in order to re-engage them as a casual for the same work.

The Ombudsman still describes the August 2024 rules as current on its casual employees page, updated in August 2026.

What is new in 2026 is the first ruling under the pathway. In August the Fair Work Commission, the tribunal that decides these disputes, ordered a university to treat a casual teacher as part-time (Baker v Macquarie University [2026] FWC 3054). It is one Commissioner’s decision about a university; what travels is the reasoning, below.

Is a seasonal worker on a regular roster still a casual?

They can be. Under the Act a person is a casual only if the relationship has no firm advance commitment to continuing and indefinite work, and they are entitled to a casual loading or a casual rate. A regular roster on its own does not make someone permanent, and a contract that ends with the season does not on its own make someone casual.

The test looks at the real substance of the relationship, including how the parties behave after the contract is signed. Section 15A of the Act names four things to weigh: whether the employer can in practice offer no work and the employee can decline it, and whether continuing work is reasonably likely given the nature of the business. Then whether permanent staff do the same kind of work, and whether there is a regular pattern. None decides it alone, and the section says a regular pattern “does not of itself indicate a firm advance commitment”.

The things that pull the other way are familiar on a seasonal roster: a full-season commitment asked of the casual, set hours they cannot in practice decline, and permanent staff doing the same work beside them. Add an expectation on both sides that they will be back next year, and that is where the August 2026 decision travels. The teacher’s work was confined to semesters, on a regular timetable, over about three years of re-engagement, and the Commissioner found it looked “more akin to recurring fixed-term periods of part-time employment”. A first-season casual at a property that closes in April is a different picture from one back for a third season on the same roster. The Act does not draw that line itself; it follows from the four factors and the decision.

When can a seasonal casual ask to become permanent?

After six months, if you had 15 or more employees on the day they ask, and after twelve months if you had fewer. The clock starts on the day their employment started, and the request has to be in writing.

The pathway belongs to the employee: the casual starts it and the employer responds, and the Act places no duty on the employer to offer. The casual gives written notice that they believe they no longer meet the casual definition. They cannot give one while a pathway dispute is open, or within six months of a refused notice or a resolved dispute.

The headcount is where a seasonal business can be caught out. A small business employer has fewer than 15 employees, counted on the day the notice is given, and a casual counts if employed on a regular and systematic basis. Associated entities count as one employer. An operation with eight year-round staff and ten regular seasonal casuals is not a small business in April, so the six-month rules apply to it in season, whatever its winter headcount.

What do I have to do when a casual gives notice?

The Act requires you to consult with them, then give a written response within 21 days. The response either accepts, and says whether the job is full-time or part-time, the hours and the start day, or it refuses and gives the reasons.

The grounds for refusing are a closed list in section 66AAC of the Act: the person still meets the casual definition; there are fair and reasonable operational grounds; or a legally required recruitment process would have to be run. Operational grounds, as the Act describes them, include substantial changes to how work is organised and significant impacts on the operation of the business. The list does not mention seasons.

Two things about accepting matter. The person becomes an ongoing full-time or part-time employee from the first full pay period after the response, unless another day is agreed. The Act says this kind of employment is taken not to include employment “for the duration of a specified season”. And nothing in the pathway requires the employer to increase anyone’s hours; in the August 2026 decision the ordered share was a small part-time fraction averaged over the year.

An employer must not cut hours, change the pattern of work or end the employment in order to avoid the pathway, and giving the notice is a workplace right under the general protections. Ending an engagement because the season has genuinely ended is a different thing; if the reason is challenged under the general protections, it is for the employer to prove. A dispute about the notice itself goes to the Commission, which looks at the relationship as it stood on the day of the notice and disregards what came after.

What paperwork does a seasonal casual get, and when?

The Casual Employment Information Statement at the start, again at six months if you are not a small business, then at twelve months and every twelve months after that. A small business gives it at the start and after twelve months.

The current Statement is dated August 2025 and sits on the Ombudsman’s Statement page. It goes with the Fair Work Information Statement every new employee gets and, if the casual signs a contract dated to end with the season, the Fixed Term Contract Information Statement. The six-month issue is not required if the employer is a small business at the time that point is reached.

What does a season from 1 October to Anzac Day look like under these rules?

For an employer with 15 or more staff, the six-month point lands around 1 April, three and a half weeks before the season ends. For a small business, nothing new happens inside a single season.

Take a casual who starts on Thursday 1 October 2026 at a property that closes on Anzac Day, Sunday 25 April 2027: 206 days, about six months and three weeks.

• 1 October. Casual Employment Information Statement and Fair Work Information Statement, before or as soon as practicable after the start; the Fixed Term Contract Information Statement too if the contract is dated to end in April.
• Around 1 April. Six months in. The Statement goes out again, and the casual can now give written notice if they believe they no longer meet the casual definition. The Ombudsman’s pages give no day-count example, so treat the exact day as approximate.
• Notice given 1 April. Consult, then respond in writing by 22 April. A notice on Sunday 4 April puts the response due on Anzac Day itself; a later notice pushes it past the end of the season, and the 21 days do not stop because the season did.
• The response. Accept, and the person is an ongoing full-time or part-time employee from the next full pay period, on hours that need not increase. Refuse, in writing, on one of the listed grounds.
• 25 April. The pathway says nothing about closing for the season; closing, cutting hours or changing the roster in order to avoid it is prohibited.

For a small business the two dates are tested separately. Fewer than 15 employees when the six-month point is reached means no six-month Statement; fewer than 15 on the day of any notice means a twelve-month threshold, which one season never reaches. Whether a returning casual’s second season adds to the first is not settled on the Ombudsman’s pages; treat it as open. A season that runs the other way, as across the north, has the same clock from the person’s first day.

Is there another way to staff a season?

Yes. The Act names permanent employment “for the duration of a specified season” as a structure of its own: a fixed-term full-time or part-time contract, with leave and notice entitlements in place of the casual loading. It sits inside the Act’s limits on fixed-term contracts, and which suits a property is a question for its adviser. Under either, dismissing a permanent employee, or threatening to, in order to re-engage them as a casual for the same, or substantially the same, work is prohibited.

What is the exposure if someone was never really a casual?

Back pay for permanent entitlements, with the casual loading set off, and civil penalties. Claims can go back six years.

If a worker described as casual was not one under the definition, they, the Ombudsman or a union can claim the permanent entitlements for that period, such as paid leave. The court must reduce the claim by the casual loading paid for that purpose, and may reduce it by less if the loading was not properly specified. Under the Hospitality Award the loading is 25 per cent.

The pathway and the Statement are part of the National Employment Standards, the Act’s minimum conditions. The Ombudsman’s published maximum penalties for contravening them are, per contravention, $21,840 for an individual, $109,200 for a company with fewer than 15 employees and $546,000 for a company with 15 or more. A serious contravention, meaning a knowing or reckless one, carries ten times those.

None of this says a casual roster is the wrong way to run a season. It says the roster has a clock in it, and for an October starter at an employer with 15 or more staff it reaches six months in April.

Wild Ops is specialist recruitment for remote and regional hospitality: chefs, managers and the people who run the floor and the rooms for a season. This piece is general information, not legal advice; the rules are on the Ombudsman’s casual employment pages and in the Fair Work Act, and they are the place to check before relying on anything here. Last checked against both on 24 October 2026.