11/04/2026
Written by Simon Anthony
Playful with serious intent for your Saturday coffee
Letâs talk about cleaning.
Not the kind you say youâre going to do on a Sunday⊠and then spend most of the time on your phone crafting the perfect âcleaning postâ while casually running the Dyson around.
Now, if youâve ever hired a cleaner in Australia, there is a very good chance youâve said or at least thought this sentence:
â$45 an hour? Thatâs pretty good money.â
And that⊠is what Iâd call:
The $45 an hour myth.
Because hereâs the thing. Cleaning is one of the most important jobs in society. It keeps homes hygienic, Workplaces safe
But more than thatâŠ
Entire leaps in civilisation have come off the back of cleaning systems. Clean drinking water. Sewerage systems. Waste removal. Food safety regulations. Ventilation and exhaust systems.
Human progress didnât just come from invention.
It came from figuring out how to deal with the mess we created along the way.
And yetâŠ
Cleaning is treated with the same level of respect as the Terms and Conditions box. You know it matters⊠but youâre absolutely not engaging with it properly.
Now part of the confusion comes from the fact that cleaning is one industry, but itâs split into very different sectors.
Residential. Commercial. Specialist work like forensic or biohazard. And everything in between.
And within those sectors, youâve got completely different business models all competing side by side.
Cash in hand operators. Sham contractors. True independents. Legitimate employee based businesses.
All offering âcleaningâ⊠but operating under completely different rules. Which means customers are comparing apples to oranges to something that may or may not be legally employed.
Letâs talk about sham contracting for a second.
This is where someone is labelled a contractor⊠but treated like an employee.
Which is a bit like putting your dog in the front seat to use the T2 transit lane. Sure, heâs wearing sunglasses. Sure, he has the seatbelt on. But the gig is up the moment the officer asks you to roll the window down no matter how much of a goodboi he is.
These workers often have set hours, wear uniforms, follow company systems⊠But somehow⊠No leave. No protections. And superannuation that is non existent.
Because in these setups, the business keeps the control and the worker carries all the responsibility.
Under the Cleaning Services Award, entry level casual cleaners are sitting in the low 30s per hour plus super.
And that's with equipment, travel, insurance and admin provided.
Meanwhile, enforcement bodies are still chasing underpayment cases across the industry, particularly in large contract environments.
So when someone says â$45 an hour sounds generousâŠâ
Youâre already standing inside the $45 an hour myth.
Because cleaning is hard.
Not âI did a Pilates class onceâ hard.
More like repetitive strain, chemical exposure, constant physical movement and a completely different environment every single job.
And on top of that⊠people management! Shout out to anyone in HR, because if you think managing personalities in an office is tough... Try doing it across multiple homes, clients, standards, preferences and expectationsâŠ
Where every job comes with its own version of âjust one quick thing while youâre here.â
Cleaning isnât just physical work.
Itâs operational. Itâs interpersonal. Itâs situational awareness on repeat. Itâs a constantly shifting environment where the variables change faster than the tools in your hand.
Now letâs come back to it.
The $45 an hour myth.
Letâs say a legitimate cleaning operator charges $45 an hour.
In most industries, we accept profit as part of the deal. You look at companies on the ASX posting record profits, expanding margins, rewarding shareholdersâŠ
And everyone nods along like yes, this is business.
But when it comes to a cleanerâŠ
Suddenly the expectation is they should be in it for the love of the game. No margin. No buffer. No room to build something sustainable.
Just⊠passion.
Which is a lovely idea.
Until you remember the entire reason cleaners exist is because no one actually wants to bloody do it.
Now take that $45 and start subtracting.
Travel time. Fuel. Equipment. Insurance. Admin. Gaps between jobs. Tax.
At that point, they are not earning minimum wage. They are earning below it. While also carrying the full weight of running a business.
Which is remarkable.
In the same way juggling knives is remarkable.
A great act while itâs running smoothlyâŠ
Until it takes your hand offâŠ
And now youâre working twice as hard and only the truly sick people stay engaged.
Now letâs talk about customers.
Because customers are not the core problem.
But as the hospitality industry likes to sayâŠ
The problem with the people industry⊠is people.
Cleaning is subjective.
Youâve got pride, ego, blind spots, and the classic âitâs not that bad.â
No one sees their own home the way someone else does.
Itâs like how your nose is in your field of view 100% of the time but your brain stops seeing it⊠but for grime.
Then you get expectation creep.
âOh itâs just a quick clean.â
Which somehow includes kitchen, bathrooms, floors, dusting, edges and âwhile youâre there, could you just do the windows.â
Thatâs not a quick clean.
Thatâs a compressed full service operation.
And occasionally⊠you walk into something even more interesting.
A house full of fragile, high value itemsâŠ
Positioned in ways that can only be described as structurally optimistic. Where one misplaced elbow could wipe out the GDP of a small island nation.
And if something goes wrong⊠Suddenly weâre questioning the value of the cleaning service, Not the decision to build a glassware Jenga tower in a high traffic area.
And sitting underneath all of thisâŠ
Is the $45 an hour myth.
Cleaning also has a strange problem.
There is no universal definition of clean.
Everyone thinks they agreeâŠ
Until you actually test it.
One personâs clean is another personâs missed a spot.
One client wants hotel presentation.
Another is just happy the squashed geckos are gone from the kitchen window sill.
Which is not a metric.
Thatâs a subjective feeling.
Then thereâs risk.
Because many arrangements lack insurance, vetting and accountability.
If something goes wrong, everyone starts pointing at each other like a Spider-Man meme made entirely of invoices.
And hereâs the uncomfortable truth.
Cleaning is not easily a lifelong career.
Itâs physically demanding.
More like a trade or even an athletic career.
Except without structured support, long term planning or a post career pathway. No sponsorships. No commentary team to join.
Just knees that donât work anymore.
And people wonder why itâs so hard to findâŠ
And keepâŠ
A good cleaner.
So when people say âitâs just $45 an hourââŠ
What theyâre often referencing is what theyâve seen online.
And as we all know, social media is where reality goes to put on a costume. Everyoneâs fully booked. Everyoneâs thriving. Everyoneâs making great money.
And none of it quite adds up.
Because underneath that⊠Thereâs a labour reality.
Where many workers coming from different economic conditions look at $45 Australian dollars and convert it back to their home currency.
And in that moment, it feels like a lot.
But what gets lost is the cost of operating within the Australian economy.
The cost of living. The cost of running a business. The cost of sustainability and god forbid, a little profit. So while it might feel like theyâre getting ahead⊠Theyâre often unknowingly undercutting themselvesâŠ
Until the reality catches up. And by then⊠Itâs too late.
So letâs bring it back.
â$45 an hour sounds fair.â
Itâs not malicious. But it is built on an incomplete picture.
Because a cleaner, an actual career cleaner, is not just selling time.
Theyâre selling skill, physical output, systems, risk and consistency.
And something else we donât talk about enoughâŠ
Reliability in a completely unreliable environment.
And hereâs the kicker.
We are watching AI come for admin, marketing and finance roles in real time.
But every time we try to automate cleaningâŠ
We get a robot that at best wanders off like a confused chicken.
And at worst sets the house on fire while waving a knife at you for trying to put it out.
Cleaning is human. Mess is human. And the ability to walk into chaos and make it feel under control againâŠ
Is deeply, uniquely human.
So the next time you hear itâŠ
The $45 an hour myth.
Just rememberâŠ
Itâs not about whether $45 sounds fair.
Itâs about whether you actually understand what youâre asking someone to do for it.
Because if civilization falls apart tomorrowâŠ
It wonât be because we ran out of technology.
Itâll be because we ran out of people to clean the bloody thing.
