James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Bill 2025 and the Superannuation Guarantee Charge Amendment Bill 2025. At the outset, let me make clear the coalition strongly supports the principle of payday super. In that spirit, we will support the passage of these bills through the Senate. However, we do have concerns about the process, which we are concerned has been rushed and is careless. We believe there will be real-world ramifications for small business having to implement this.

Superannuation is not a gift from an employer; it is a pay that workers are owed for their effort. The coalition will, of course, support sensible measures which ensure Australians receive their super at the same time they are paid their wages. It is the right thing to do, and it will help protect workers in the short term and ensure larger superannuation balances come in retirement in the long term. Around $5 billion in super is going unpaid every year. This is a serious failure in the system, and Australians deserve better. Every worker should receive every dollar they earn. We agree that more frequent payments will help close this gap, which is why the coalition will support these bills. However, while the principle is correct, Labor's execution of it is far from clean. Once again, we have a government which is obsessed with the announcement and careless about the delivery. A rushed and poorly planned rollout risks chaos for small businesses right across the country.

We've seen this pattern before, from the Treasurer's botched and now withdrawn superannuation tax on unrealised gains to this sloppy implementation plan. Labor never learns from its mistakes. Small and family businesses are always left to pick up the pieces, while the government boasts about its headlines under Labor. Before I comment further on the coalition's concerns with this bill, I want to note the opposition's disappointment that Labor and the Greens teamed up to shut down a short inquiry into this bill. Labor's own documents make clear that Treasury advised an 18-month implementation lead time. Yet businesses are being given less than eight months to overhaul their payment systems. Of even more concern, that eight-month ticking clock began the day this bill was introduced, not the day that it will pass the parliament. Labor took more than two years from announcing this policy to drafting the legislation, and now, suddenly, they claim there is no time to act sensibly. This is irresponsible.

That's why the coalition moved an amendment in the House calling on the government to follow Treasury's advice by giving small business and digital service providers the full 18 months they need to implement these changes by pushing back the start date for businesses with less than 20 staff for 18 months to 1 January. Labor refused to listen, so we risk the systems not being ready in time. The government is even shutting down the free superannuation clearinghouse service on the very day these new obligations begin. That affects around 200,000 small business users and will cause further uncertainty. Software providers are being asked to build, test and rollout entirely new systems to pay people superannuation in a fraction of the time that they say is required to get it right. Everybody in this chamber knows what happens when technology upgrades are rushed. We've seen it many times before. Systems fail, and someone, the end user, ultimately pays the price.

As is often the way with this government, consequences will be borne by the small business who can least afford it. For some employers, super payments will go from quarterly to weekly. A tradie with three staff, a small cafe or a neighbourhood hairdresser with a couple of employees do not have HR departments to absorb the compliance burden nor an IT director to manage new systems for them. Every moment that they spend on paperwork is a moment taken away from keeping their doors open. Small businesses account for about 97 per cent of all Australian businesses, and they employ around 40 per cent of workers. They do not have the spare resources to absorb unnecessary pressure. For some, Labor's reckless timeline could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

That is why the coalition has called on the government to allow hardworking small businesses a fair and achievable pathway. It is not only the coalition that has raised concerns. MYOB, who supports thousands of small businesses across Australia to make these payments, has warned of serious cash flow pressures that could push many firms into insolvency. COSBOA has urged the government to adopt a more realistic timeline because the current approach risks overwhelming those who are already struggling.

The Treasurer claims that the ATO will take a soft approach to compliance in the first 12 months. That's not a plan. That is an admission that the government knows that there will be problems and that they are refusing to fix it. Businesses across the country are unaware this change is even coming because Labor has failed to communicate it. All the coalition has asked for is a responsible timeline—a timeline and a process the coalition has showed is possible. We showed Labor how to do major payroll reform properly. When the coalition was in government, we delivered single touch payroll, the very system that is making payday super more possible. We phased it in a commonsense manner—large employers first, small employers later, with micro employers given reasonable time and concessions.

Labor now expects even a small suburban cafe to meet the same the deadline as a large multinational corporation. That is absurd. Labor also risks punishing honestly employers who encounter problems that are outside their control. If the bank transfer fails or a service outage causes delays, surely no-one here thinks a small business should be hit with penalties. Draft ATO guidance is not enough protection. Draft guidance can change at any moment, and it expires after just one year.

To be clear, we want workers to receive their super entitlements. We want dodgy employers who are not paying workers what they are entitled to to be caught and held accountable, but we'll also stand up for small and family businesses who keep millions of Australians employed. The coalition supports payday super; Labor needs to support a fair and responsible implementation of it.