“I don’t think anyone should have to pay to access their own money.”

So says Beck Murdoch, a disability support worker who says she has “begrudgingly” paid a 1.5% fee to be paid early for work funded by the National Disability Insurance Scheme rather than face uncertainty or weeks of delays.

Murdoch is speaking about Express Pay, a third-party payment service owned and operated by the gig economy platform Mable, which helps connect disabled clients and support workers.

Workers who use Mable are independent contractors and therefore not entitled to the same rights as employees. Workers are engaged and paid by their clients rather than Mable, with Mable collecting the fees from clients and distributing them to workers.