Renee Coffey (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In Griffith people change jobs often—a hospitality worker picking up extra shifts along Boundary Street, a nurse moving between hospitals, a tradie starting as a new subcontractor in Woolloongabba, a graduate launching their career with a new tertiary degree or TAFE qualification—and, every time that happens, a very ordinary human admin moment comes around again: the dreaded onboarding forms. For most workers, this is the key moment where their super is set up for a new job. But, if they are rushed, if the information is unclear or if the process is cluttered with product promotion, they can be steered into decisions they did not really make. They can end up with a new account they don't need, paying duplicate fees and insurance and watching their retirement savings erode in the background.

Workers deserve better. They deserve to be properly informed, to clearly see their existing stapled fund, to understand their options and to make a genuine choice that fits their circumstances—because it is their money and it is their retirement. That is exactly what this bill is really about: making sure working people keep more of what they earn so that they can retire with dignity.

Schedules 1 and 2 go to the heart of fairness in the superannuation system, ensuring workers and their interests are always put first in onboarding processes related to super. We introduced stapling to stop people being defaulted into a brand-new account every time they start a new job. It's a simple idea: your existing fund can follow you unless you choose otherwise. It matters because duplicate accounts mean duplicate fees, duplicate insurance and lower balances, ultimately, at the time of retirement. Schedule 1 strengthens that protection by streamlining the choice-of-fund process during onboarding. It gives employers more flexibility to request an employee stapled fund details earlier so the employee can actually see their existing fund during the onboarding process, consider it and then make an informed choice. That's not taking choice away. It's quite the opposite. It's making choice real, because people cannot choose what they cannot see. It also helps employers do the right thing. It gives them more timely and accurate information, and that is especially important as we move towards payday super, where super is paid alongside wages, not months later. Payday super is about making sure workers are paid what they are owed when they are owed it. These reforms help the system get ready to deliver that change smoothly.

Schedule 2 of the bill deals with the creeping commercialisation of onboarding. A 2022-23 review of the Your Future, Your Super reforms found that some onboarding software providers were being paid to advertise super products and sometimes products associated with the provider right at the moment when a worker is trying to start a new job and get their paperwork in order. That's not informed consent; that's just sales and marketing. Schedule 2 introduces a targeted ban on superannuation advertising during onboarding, with sensible exemptions so that workers can still see their stapled fund, the employer default fund and, in limited circumstances, certain regulated MySuper products with strong disclosure requirements. That is exactly where consumer protection belongs, and it will go a long way in protecting the superannuation of all workers across Australia. Changes like these keep the focus where it should be—on transparency, informed choice and workers' interests, not on marketing.

These onboarding reforms are part of our government's larger set of changes to fix unpaid super and strengthen confidence in the system, and payday super is central to that. In December last year, the ATO released new data revealing $1.1 billion in unpaid super had been returned to nearly a million individual super funds in 2024-25. That's money that people earned—and it was hard-earned—but did not originally receive. Unpaid super does not fall evenly. It disproportionately affects younger workers and people in insecure work, many of whom live in my area of Griffith. These are the very workers least able to absorb the loss and the least likely to have the time or the power to be able to chase it up.

We have unfortunately seen what this looks like in our communities. It looks like younger workers in hospitality juggling shifts, trying to pay rent and assuming everything has been paid properly, only to find out years later that it was not. It looks like someone changing jobs and not even realising they have missing contributions until the debt is too old or the business has folded. We also know that impact compounds, because super is built on time. When contributions are missing, workers not only lose that contribution; they lose the investment earnings on top of it.

From 1 July this year, employers will be required to pay superannuation guarantee contributions at the same time as wages, instead of quarterly, and contributions will need to be received by the employee super fund within a shorter window after pay day so workers can more easily track what they are owed and the ATO can detect missing payments earlier before debts become unrecoverable. The system is also being modernised to ensure consequences match the harm when employers do not pay on time. That is why schedules 1 and 2 are so important. If we're asking the system to move to payday super then onboarding processes must be clean, transparent and worker focused. We cannot have a system where super is paid more frequently but workers are still being nudged into unnecessary new accounts or pushed past information that would help them to make a good, genuine decision and choice.

Schedule 3 provides targeted income tax and withholding tax exemptions for World Rugby and Rugby Australia strictly limited to income directly related to delivering the rugby world cups. This approach follows established precedent for other major international events hosted here, and it matters for the legacy we leave—jobs, tourism, local participation and especially a lift in opportunities for women and girls in sport as the women's tournament approaches.

Schedule 5 of the bill matters deeply to me and to communities like Griffith because it speaks to the strength of Australia's not-for-profit sector and the quiet generosity that underpins it. For a couple of decades before entering this place, I worked in the charities sector in Australia, leading national charities, so this is particularly important to me and of course important to the sector and the donors who part with their hard-earned money to support the causes. Deductible gift recipient, DGR, listing is valuable for fundraising and is a practical lever that helps organisations attract public support for work that benefits the community, including Equality Australia, one of the many incredible organisations that will be listed for DGR status under this bill. Equality Australia is doing work that is often complex and behind the scenes—detailed law reform, careful policy development and sustained advocacy to close gaps that still leave LGBTQIA+ people exposed to discrimination or harm. For organisations like Equality Australia, fundraising is critical to ensure they can keep the lights on, and the listing for DGR status will bolster their efforts.

Before coming into this place, I sat on the board of Fundraising Institute Australia, so I have particular experiences and insights into just how much DGR status can help these charities, organisations and non-profits. In practice, DGR status encourages the community to support the work of these organisations, which in turn helps organisations plan further ahead, invest in staff and expertise and respond quickly when the community needs them, whether that is preparing submissions, supporting campaigns or turning lived experience into concrete reform proposals. It strengthens not only their financial base but also their long-term stability that allows them to keep showing up year after year for the people they serve. In a community like mine in Brisbane, that work really matters. It helps make sure people can participate in community life without fear, and it strengthens the basic Australian promise that everyone should be treated with fairness and with respect.

I want to make special mention of another organisation that will be listed for DGR status under this bill, the Parenthood Project. In Griffith, we are absolutely a community of families, including parents juggling cost-of-living pressures, the childcare waitlist, the scramble of drop-off and pick-up, and the constant effort to give kids the best chances and a good start. The Parenthood's work is squarely in that lived reality. The Parenthood is an advocacy organisation, working to make Australia the best place in the world to be a parent, backed by a national community of more than 80,000 parents and carers. As the CEO, Georgie Dent, shared with me:

DGR status is a game-changer for The Parenthood.

It recognises the vital public benefit of our work to make Australia the best place in the world to be a parent and raise a child. It's a vote of confidence in the power of parents to help build a fairer, more equitable Australia.

That's the point. When we make it easier for Australians to support the organisations delivering real public benefit, we strengthen the fabric of our community.

This bill brings together a set of practical measures that speak to the kind of economy and community we want to build. It strengthens how superannuation works at the moments that matter so workers are informed, protected from inappropriate sales pressure and better placed to keep more of what they earn for retirement. It honours Australia's commitments as a host of major international sporting events with clear, targeted and time limited tax settings that help deliver the rugby world cups and the jobs, tourism and participation legacy that can flow from them. It builds on the strength of our not-for-profit sector by extending deductible gift recipient status to organisations that continue to deliver immeasurable public benefit, helping them to fundraise, to plan and to keep showing up for the communities that they serve.

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