Lucy’s job should be more secure – but at Australian universities, labour laws are having the opposite effect

Lucy Nicolls has been employed as a casual at the University of Sydney for eight years, a situation she says is a state of ‘constant precarity’. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Lucy Nicolls is used to disappointment. She has been casually employed by the University of Sydney for eight years, despite repeatedly trying to get an ongoing contract.

So when the federal government’s casual employment changes came into effect last month, she wasn’t holding out hope for immediate change.