I see there is no more such thing as a casual worker. That leaves me with a major problem. How do you draw up a contract to cater for the need of the traditional casual?

I need a worker that I can call when needed by the business. Sometimes twice a week, some weeks not at all and some weeks 4-5 days. This is too unpredictable to forecast.

The only way I see is to stipulate working hours of 3 days per week. Then, if he work 1 day or 2 days or nothing at all, I will have to pay the 3 days. The next problem is when he work more than the 3 days, then I will have to pay overtime rate for the other days. Obviously that is not going to be cost effective and I can not afford to do that. I also can not employ a different person after every 24 hours that the previous one worked, to stay under the 24 hour p/m limit. I will also have to stipulate a fixed period to the contract, which leaves the question of how many times a contract can be renewed?

How do you handle public holidays, as I will not have a way to determine whether he would have worked on that specific day or not?

I employ less than 10 people and operate a small business in the hospitality industry. (Guest house) Are all these rules applicable?