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Some risk is unavoidable when engaging contingent workers, but certain steps can go a long way towards preventing regulator scrutiny and entitlement claims, a lawyer says.

Australia's recently returned Labor government has a "philosophical bent" to be suspicious of contingent labour, Moray & Agnew partner Nick Duggal told the recent ATC Contingent Workforce Forum.

The compliance obligations introduced by the Closing Loopholes laws made it more challenging to engage contingent labour, and the area is still "very much under scrutiny" now, he says.

Even when an employer has "a very respectable argument" that its workers are contractors, and the ATO has agreed, Duggal says a court might still find its workforce is owed years of backpay and superannuation...