Ged Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Bill 2025. This is a bill that represents the Labor Party and the union movement at its best. It's a bill that supports working people, women and older Australians. It's a bill that builds a system and a country that is fair, that is just and that supports people to live a life of dignity. That is what the Australian Labor Party is about: working hard, looking after one another and assuring that everyone, not just the wealthy, can live that life with dignity.

One of the key ways that the Australian Labor Party has supported this vision for our society is through the mighty superannuation system. Superannuation is one of the proudest achievements of the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Labor movement. It is the absolute embodiment of a simple but powerful idea: that after a lifetime of work, every Australian deserves dignity, independence and financial security in their retirement. Let me tell you this: it did not come easily. Superannuation wasn't handed down by very generous employers. No, it was fought for, tooth and nail. It was envisaged to be part of that great idea of the social wage. This was a view and a vision of the Hawke-Keating era and of that great trade unionist Bill Kelty. It was established along with other great measures of the social wage like Medicare, another great implementation that we are incredibly proud of on this side of the House.

In the 1980s, unions and the Hawke and Keating Labor governments came together to tackle one of the great injustices of our economy: that only the wealthiest Australians could have a decent retirement. At that time, it was only a small percentage of Australians—and, I've got to say, mostly men—in fairly high-paying jobs that had any form of superannuation at all. These superannuation funds were run by their employees. They were industry based and all run under different legislation and different rules. We wanted that to be uniform and available to everyone, and, through bold Labor reform, that changed. The introduction of universal compulsory superannuation in 1992 transformed our entire economy. It definitely transformed the lives of millions of Australians. It extended the promise of a decent retirement to women, casual workers, people in low-paid jobs and those who were too often left behind. It established the three pillars of retirement: the pension, superannuation and personal savings. Today, the superannuation industry holds trillions of dollars in superannuation savings that belong to the workers of this country. That's not just an extraordinary asset. It's a testament to the power of a collective vision, to hard work and, yes, to sacrifice.

Many people might forget that at the establishment of the superannuation industry, workers forewent a three per cent pay rise in one year to establish their funds, putting that hard-earned money, or that hoped-for pay rise, not directly into their pockets that year to spend but into a superannuation fund that would grow with compound interest—that amazing thing—over their working lives to give them a decent retirement. Some of these workers were very low paid, so foregoing a three per cent pay rise was actually a great sacrifice to them.

Not everybody supported the concept. Definitely, I would say people on the conservative side of politics and a lot of employers did not support it, but neither did a lot of people on the progressive side, including some workers and some unions. They thought that that money was better off going directly into the pockets of workers and not into a fund. So there was a lot of debate and a lot of discussion about establishing the superannuation industry. But thanks to union legends like the great Tom McDonald—the late Tom McDonald, I'm sad to say. He was the national secretary of the Building Workers' Industrial Union of Australia at the time. He believed passionately that superannuation was going to be one of the most important assets that workers could have. He ran an amazing campaign with his building workers at the time to convince them that this was a good idea. He did that. He held a members meeting one day, and they voted to forego their pay rise to establish their superannuation fund. And when the Building Workers' Industrial Union of Australia got that over the line with their members, other unions followed. It was an amazing beginning. Tom McDonald went on to be a great supporter of the superannuation industry, and I'd like to acknowledge his contribution today.

Superannuation has made Australia one of the most secure retiree nations in the world. But, like any system, we know it can always be improved. There's always more work to do. It seems that those on the other side want to spend a great deal of their time tearing down some of our great institutions. We know what they've tried to do to Medicare over the decades and over time. We've heard that many times in this House. They have constantly launched attacks on our superannuation system. They seem to think that it is an absolute anathema that workers should accrue such capital. Even more offensive to them is that workers have control of that capital. You see, workers sit on industry superannuation fund boards and are part of a very important governance structure of that industry. When I was president of the ACTU—and, indeed, secretary of the nurses' union—we fought off attack after attack from conservative governments on that system.

We on this side of the House are in absolute agreement that we need to build on these systems. That's why, in the last term of government, the Albanese Labor government expanded paid parental leave to include the payment of superannuation, to ensure people who take time away from work for parental leave don't miss out on lost super. And, my goodness, it will go a long way to closing that gender pay gap.

That's why we are here today. We know that too many workers are missing out. They're missing out because some employers only pay super once a quarter or, worse, fall behind all together. When super isn't paid every payday, workers lose out on the compound interest that makes super so powerful. It's their money, earned through their labour, and it should be in their account when they're paid, not months later. In addition to this, quarterly payments make it harder for workers to track what they're owed, and it's easier for those dodgy employers—and I want to make the point that there are not many of them, but there are some out there—to delay or avoid paying super at all. In fact, the Australian Taxation Office estimates that $5.2 billion in super went unpaid in 2021-22 alone. That's $100 million every week that workers earned but never received, $100 million that should have gone to support their retirement, $100 million a week that would have supported them to live their lives with dignity.

This issue isn't impacting the top of the town. It disproportionately affects younger workers and those in insecure work. These are people who can least afford to miss out on their retirement savings. These are the people who the Australian Labor Party is here, proudly, to support today with this legislation. People like my stepdaughter, who worked casually in hospitality, like so many people young people have done and still do. She would check her pay packet regularly. She just happened to see there was a super payment there, but didn't really take much notice of what was in her super account. It became apparent that she had not been paid her super for years. She worked for the one employer; she trusted him and he let her down. For three to four years he'd put no superannuation in her account at all. When we discovered this, she alerted her fellow employees and, just as the previous speaker my good friend the member for Bendigo said, the employer went bankrupt and disappeared. He had no money to pay what was owed to those employees. This is a story that we've heard time and time again.

I'm very proud to say that, years later, my stepdaughter is a mum, she has a good career and she is also a union delegate. One of the things she is absolutely fiercely passionate about is making sure that all her fellow employees know how to check their super and make sure they're getting paid. Labor believes super should be paid on payday, just like wages. It's a simple idea that makes a big difference, ensuring every dollar workers earn works for them straight away. It's why the Albanese Labor government is introducing this bill, and why I am speaking so passionately in support of it.

This legislation is a once-in-a-generation reform to fix unpaid super, and from 1 July 2026 employers will be required to pay superannuation guarantee contributions at the same time as wages. Employers must ensure that contributions are received by the employees super fund within seven business days of payday. This change will make it easier for employees to track their super, and for the ATO to detect missed payments earlier, before debts become unrecoverable—this is a critical part of this legislation. It also updates the superannuation guarantee charge, which is the penalty employers face when they fail to pay super on time, because failing to pay working people what they are owed is not okay.

Under the new framework, the super guarantee charge will apply for each payday an employer fails to pay super in full and on time. The updated super guarantee charge includes notional earnings, and this compensates employees for the investment returns they missed out on due to late payment; an administrative uplift, which is an additional charge to reflect the cost of enforcement and to incentivise voluntary rectification; and choice loading, an additional penalty if the employer fails to pay into the employee's chosen fund. Employers who continue not to pay, even after the ATO has raised an SG charge, will face higher penalties of up to 50 per cent of the unpaid amount. These changes are designed to prompt employers to fix mistakes quickly and ensure workers are fairly compensated when employers fall short. If employers want to avoid these penalties, all they need to do is the right thing and make sure workers get paid their super on time into the right account with the right amount.

Superannuation is a vehicle for fairness, for long-term investment and for nation building. We're incredibly proud of our superannuation industry. I think around $4 trillion is now held in assets for workers in this country. That is amazing money that is being invested in infrastructure, in health care, in all sorts of things that make this nation better.

But we must always remain vigilant. We can't listen to those opposite who, every few years, try again and again to undermine the superannuation industry. Labor will always defend superannuation, because we know what it stands for: fairness, security and shared prosperity. The story of superannuation is a story about what Labor does best. We take good ideas and we make them universal. We don't just look after a few; we build systems that lift everyone up, and we improve those systems as time goes on.

And that's what we'll keep doing. We'll keep defending the superannuation system for the workers who rely on it. We'll keep strengthening it. We'll keep defending it when it's under attack. And we will keep ensuring that the next generation of Australians can look forward to a retirement with dignity, built on those three pillars. They will have a retirement that is not uncertain and precarious but one built on security and dignity, knowing that they have worked hard all their life to achieve it, and that is exactly what will happen.

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