Laravel 11 policy not auto-detected unless model is passed

I have an Employer model + controller + policy, all located and named as per the docs and the policy is auto-detected and implemented as expected just fine. Well sort of, using the code below, 'view' is authorized ok, but 'create' is not (is always 'unauthorized').

class EmployerPolicy
{
	public function view(User $user, Employer $employer): bool
	{
		return true;
	}

	public function create(User $user): bool
	{
		return true;
	}
}


class EmployerController extends Controller
{
	public function show(Employer $employer)
	{
	   Gate::authorize('view', $employer);       
	   return view('employer.show', ['employer'=> $employer]);
	}

	public function create()
	{
		Gate::authorize('create');

		return view('employer.create');
	}
}

The only way I can get it to work is by passing an Employer object into the policy, something like below (for 'create'):

class EmployerPolicy
{
	public function view(User $user, Employer $employer): bool
	{
		return true;
	}

	public function create(User $user, Employer $employer): bool
	{
		return true;
	}
}


class EmployerController extends Controller
{
	public function show(Employer $employer)
	{
	   Gate::authorize('view', $employer);       
	   return view('employer.show', ['employer'=> $employer]);
	}

	public function create()
	{
		$employer = new Employer();
		Gate::authorize('create', $employer);

		return view('employer.create');
	}
}

I haven't seen this behaviour mentioned anywhere, in my mind if the policy file is auto-detected then any of the policy methods should work, but it appears that it only works when an instance of the model is passed into 'authorize'. Is this expected behaviour?