Personnel Contracting is the story of a worker who was called a contractor on paper, but whose legal role looked much more like labour supplied into someone else's business. Mr McCourt did not build a separate construction business, negotiate a job with the builder, or carry the commercial risk of the work. He signed with the labour-hire company and was sent where the labour-hire arrangement required him to go.
The High Court's point was not that written contracts magically solve classification. It was that, where the contract is genuine and complete, the legal rights and obligations in that contract are the starting point. If those rights put the worker inside the business rather than in business for themselves, the contractor label can fall away.