The irony shouldn’t be lost on anyone that on the day we saw wages rising at the fastest rate in a decade, a company that has a business model not based on paying fair wages — Deliveroo Australia — would pull up stumps and go back home to the UK, leaving driver and office employers without their ‘jobs’.

I write ‘jobs’ because the Deliveroo model is a flawed business model where their delivery people were always meant to be low-paid contractors but unions have been arguing that they really just exploited employees.

Labor and the unions have had companies such as Deliveroo in their sights for a long time as these headlines show:

1. Gig economy workers: Labor's plan to boost job security, pay and entitlements. (The Guardian 10 February 2021)

2. New legislation in the works to protect gig economy workers after historic Uber deal. (The New Daily 1 July 2022)

This story told us that the Federal government had “…committed to introducing legislation to protect gig economy workers after a historic agreement between Uber Australia and the Transport Workers Union. “The rideshare giant struck a deal with the local union on Tuesday after clashing for years over workers’ rights.”

This ‘uber cool’ deal for their deliverers meant that these men and women on bikes and in cars would no longer be treated as contractors, and they would have minimum and enforceable earnings, a means to sort out disputes and the right to have a collective body to represent them.

Yep, they were to be converted from quasi contractors into employees, with trade union like support and better wages. And that largely explains why Deliveroo is out of here.

As news.com.au reported: “The food delivery company has gone into voluntary administration in Australia, citing poor profitability in a highly competitive market as the reason behind its collapse.”

Worse still, the voluntary administrators KordaMentha have told riders they are no longer needed and have offered limited information on how they will be paid any money owed to them by Deliveroo.

This looks like a masterstroke by Uber to crack a deal with the TWU to sink its struggling rival and effectively be in the box seat to absorb Deliveroo’s share of the food delivery business.

The problem is that workers won[t get their overdue pay and restaurants/café owners could have trouble getting any outstanding payments owed from meals supplied.

Food deliveries have always been based on a flawed model of underpaid workers and undercharged consumers. The digital world has always ignored proper regulations and standards, as we’ve seen with cryptocurrencies’ problems of late and even hacking to steal our financial and personal details. Consumers have liked the offerings of the digital world and politicians have been too gutless to fight consumers, and what they want because they’re voters.

Hopefully events like Deliveroo’s exit will get politicians to start leading with some guts. This video of the former NZ Prime Minister, John Key, reminds us of how many politicians need a lesson in courage.