Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Bill 2025. I associate myself with the remarks of my colleague Senator McKim. The Greens welcome this bill, and we will be supporting it. It is long-overdue reform, and I want to acknowledge the work of many people that have brought us to where we are today: the Super Members Council, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia and Super Consumers Australia. They have pushed so hard to secure these reforms.

This bill requires employers to pay superannuation guarantee contributions at the same time as they pay their employees their take-home pay. It intends to strengthen Australia's superannuation system by reducing the superannuation guarantee gap and to help deliver a more dignified retirement for all Australians. It makes it clear to businesses that treat unpaid super as optional, or as a buffer to their own financial management, that this behaviour is not acceptable. This bill finally changes that behaviour. From 1 July 2026, superannuation will be paid at the same time as wages.

But workers need stronger protections and more progressive reform. Superannuation is a crucial right. It's not an optional extra. It's a workplace entitlement that protects a decent life in retirement for millions of Australians. According to APRA, as of 30 June 2025, Australians held over $4.3 trillion in superannuation assets. However, we know that too many workers are missing out on their hard-earned superannuation. The ATO estimates that $5.2 billion worth of superannuation went unpaid in 2021-22. That is an enormous sum, and it's essentially theft. Noncompliance with the superannuation guarantee is unevenly spread across employers, with greater prevalence in small and microbusinesses and in certain industries.

Superannuation has made such a difference to the lives of millions of Australians. Right now, however, Australian women are still retiring with a third less super than men are. A quarter of all women in this country retire in poverty, and many women's organisations and researchers—and I was one of them—across Australia, at the moment that super was introduced, pointed to the structural inequality between the genders that is built into our super system, which piggybacks off our wages system and thus reproduces pay inequity in retirement incomes.

The Greens successfully moved amendments to legislation in the last parliament to criminalise superannuation theft, and now it's a criminal offence for employers to withhold super payments. Those reforms sent a strong message to employers that, if they steal superannuation from their workers, they will pay the price. In the most egregious cases, they will face criminal prosecution and go to jail. Victims of super theft are disproportionately young and low-paid or migrant workers, and most commonly they're working in the accommodation and food services, retail and construction sectors. We know that unpaid superannuation can reduce an employee's retirement income or even delay their retirement. Now superannuation theft is a crime, just like wage theft, and this is what happens when Labor can work with the Greens to enact meaningful reforms for workers.

The Greens believe that we must reform our superannuation system further. Young workers should receive the same financial rights as everyone else. Currently, workers under 18 are only entitled to super if they work more than 30 hours a week. This rule means most workers under 18 miss out on superannuation because they don't work enough hours each week, and this costs them thousands of dollars in lost savings when they reach retirement. We've had them in my office, a number of times, showing me the numbers of the money that they lose, very regretfully, and knowing, as they do, that this will impact on their retirement earnings many decades ahead.

The Greens believe that superannuation is a universal entitlement and that it should be accumulated fairly, regardless of your age. That's why we will be moving an amendment to the payday superannuation bill to make sure that young part-time workers are not left behind. Our amendment makes one thing crystal clear—you can't carve out 16- and 17-year-olds working part-time in retail, hospitality and any other job from receiving superannuation just based on their age and hours of work. These young workers are already some of lowest paid in our economy, and, too often, they're the first to miss out on super. By including under-18 workers, regardless of their hours, in the super system, we can give young people a head start on saving for their future, while recognising their valuable contributions to the workforce, often from a very early age and making a really significant contribution.

We took a policy to the last election to extend the superannuation guarantee to all under-18-year-olds, ensuring they're paid contributions regardless of how many hours they work. Under current laws, to be eligible for super, under-18s need those 30 hours a week from the same employer. However, most young people juggle part-time work with school and with study and, therefore, are unable to reach the required 30 hours a week. As a result, hundreds of thousands of young workers are missing out on super. It's a small, sensible change that we're proposing that will make a big difference for thousands of Australian workers starting out at work while also studying. The Greens believe every worker deserves super on payday, no exceptions, no exclusions and no excuses.

We know that our super system needs improvement in other ways also. We need greater public investment options, fairer rates of taxation, ethical investment structures and to ensure more equitable retirement incomes, particularly for women and other disadvantaged groups. The Greens have circulated a second reading amendment, as my colleague Senator McKim spoke of, that holds the government to a promise that it's already made—to regulate advertising of superannuation funds during employee onboarding. These protections were in the exposure draft of this bill. This is a really important reform that would protect workers from being influenced to join unsuitable superannuation products when they start a new job. The Greens will continue to hold the Labor government to their previous commitment to do this before 1 July 2026.

In conclusion, this is a bill that aligns with Greens values of fairness, economic security and intergenerational justice. However, we do not accept that this where the reform journey ends. Our superannuation system must evolve to meet the realities of modern work and to address entrenched inequality to ensure that women, First Nations people and insecure workers are not left behind. It means that workers and the ATO will spot problems faster. It means unpaid super can be recovered sooner and that fewer workers arrive at retirement to discover that tens of thousands of dollars are missing. Superannuation is one of the key pillars of our economy, and the Greens welcome this simple, fair and long-overdue bill, and we would be delighted to see our amendment supported to ensure that all of those young people, 16- and 17-year-olds, making significant contributions to our labour market are not robbed of their super just because they don't work enough hours, even though their contributions to their workplaces are very meaningful and important.