Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Superannuation Guarantee Charge Amendment Bill 2025 and the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Bill 2025 penalise employers who do not pay their employees' superannuation guarantee contributions at the same time as salary and wages. The payment must reach the employee's super account within seven business days of the employee's payday. Currently, payments are due 28 days after the quarter to which they relate.

This is a major change in cash flow. It brings forward a significant expense for businesses, particularly small businesses, while only adding a small amount to their super across their working life—if they can get a job, of course. So many jobs these days require ABNs, in which case the person must pay their own super. It says in the legislation:

The reforms intend to 'strengthen Australia's superannuation system' by reducing the SG gap—

which was estimated at $5 billion in 2022. Treasurer Chalmers wrongly says:

While most employers do the right thing, some disreputable ones are exploiting their employees.

Most of the shortfall is in small businesses and microbusinesses and includes solopreneurs not paying themselves super. The quality of data on this is surprisingly poor for something being used to justify this onerous bill. The government doesn't want the facts to get in the way of their virtue-signalling and pork-barrelling of union backed industry super funds. That's the target. That's what the government wants to do here—look after their union bosses' super industry funds.

If the employer hasn't paid the super 28 days after payday, they will receive a notice giving them 28 more days to pay. If they still fail to pay, there is a penalty of 25 per cent of the missing super. That's for the first offence. There's a 50 per cent penalty for a second offence and for subsequent offences. This will be a nightmare for small and medium businesses, particularly in retail, hospitality and tourism, and it will be a gift for super funds, the unions and the Australian Taxation Office.

Treasurer Chalmers has no clue how businesses—especially small businesses and microbusinesses—work. The current quarterly super system increases the ability of small and medium businesses to smooth their cash flow over what is, effectively, a four-month period. Businesses could set their staffing levels to the expected revenue for a three-month period.

Let me give you an example. Retailers have mostly completed hiring their staff for over the Christmas period, even though Christmas spending doesn't get going for another few weeks. They know they can afford the wages now but don't need to pay super until the money comes in next month. What's going to happen under this ignorant, anti-small-business legislation is that small and medium retailers will cut their staffing. They'll reduce the number of their workers equal to the amount of the super contribution that they're bringing forward. They're taking the cost out of labour because there's nowhere else to take it from. That's what you don't seem to understand. You certainly don't understand rents or profits.

Most small and medium businesses in this country are struggling as it is. Business bankruptcies are at a record high under this Labor government, and now more will go under. Large retailers—wait for it—will simply pass this cost on to everyday Australians through higher prices, so the people of Australia, and the workers in particular, are going to get shafted by this bill. Treasurer Chalmers and this Labor government have ensured that tens of thousands of, mostly, young Australians will not have a job this Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day or Black Friday and other retail highlights.

It isn't just retailers, though, who will lose. This bill will, in addition, harm markets, tourism and hospitality—all of which are weather dependent. These businesses will not be able to smooth out the ups and downs coming from good and bad weather—and there are ups and downs. That's the way the earth operates; weather is variable. They will be forced to set staffing levels lower to ensure that they can cover the wages of staff and their super. I expect we will see a change to employment terms, with weather clauses being written into awards and further reductions in shifts to allow staff to be sent home if businesses are not busy.

This Labor government has already had a lesson in unintended consequences with its greedy hike in tobacco tariffs leading literally to open warfare, firebombings and killings in the industry, and lower tax revenues. Everyone loses except the criminals. Treasurer Chalmers is in for another such lesson here. It will not be the government that's harmed. It will be young Australians—and retailers—who will be harmed. Of course, Labor won't care. They don't govern for young Australians. If they did, then the Albanese government would not have flooded the country with new arrivals, driving up rental and home prices, lowering wages and reducing living standards. Did anyone mention unaffordable power?

The winners from this bill will be the government's mates. The unions' super funds will get richer. The large corporations who can afford to carry staff for the few weeks will get richer. The big end of town gets richer, and Australians get poorer. I said last week that the Australian Labor Party spell 'labor' without a 'U', l-a-b-o-r, because the Labor Party do not care about 'you'. They bypass the 'you'. Young Australians are about to get another lesson on how little they matter to this government.

Workers will be sacked, and businesses will close as a direct result of this policy. It's clear. The revenue-raising figures and estimates in this bill make no allowance for expected employment downturns, which will come—the unintended consequence of this bill. It's not, as proposed in the legislation, better for employees because they get their super money earlier, because the job market and the private sector will immediately shrink.

After Treasurer Chalmers had his fantasy tax grab on unrealised capital gains trashed, he has evidently pivoted to recouping the money off the dying and struggling ecosystem of private industry, which has borne all the costs of unaffordable energy increases, foreign competition and Labor's recent award changes.

These bills are estimated to increase taxation payments to $589 million over the next three years. This is about a taxation increase, which ignores as usual the decrease in revenue from business collapses and staff sackings. There will be lower employment.

Why is the government banking on this bill boosting their bottom line so much? Is this about superannuation or is it revenue raising—fining small businesses for laws the government knows they won't be able to comply with on time? Maybe the government don't know; that's how out of touch they are. Despite this, this bill is disguised as being pro worker, when in fact compulsory super contributions are eating away at workers' take-home pay and preventing them from saving for a home. The $4 trillion—that's right; $4 trillion—in Australia's super accounts is employees' money. It's the workers' money. It's come out of workers' wages.

One Nation will counter this Albanese government attack on our young with better policy. We will allow young Australians to use their super balance towards a deposit on a new home. That's been a standing part of our policy for a year now. The higher the deposit, the lower the repayments. The more the young are advantaged there, the more realistic purchasing a house becomes. The investment from the person's own super account into their home is secured with a loan, so their super grows as the value of their home grows. You'll never see that policy coming from the ALP, the Australian Labor Party, because their policy is for the government to own your home, or a share of it, so they can dictate to you how to live and who you should live with. Think about it. This has all been documented.

This measure adds to payroll complexity for large corporations, especially around employment mobility. Large corporations will not pay for this measure. The Australian public will, though, through higher prices or staff reductions.

Industry has already asked for a one- to two-year delay to make the necessary software changes. That's how extreme the measures are. Accounting software giant Xero provides the software that 1.8 million businesses use and has recommended a two-year window for implementation. Instead, this bill is going to be rushed through, with an implementation date of July. Imagine the cash-flow burden on a medium business with a thousand staff across different states, on different awards, all taking leave and changing super funds during this period.

Treasurer Chalmers can't imagine that. He has no business experience, and, quite honestly, he hasn't a clue about the misery his policies are causing small and medium businesses in this country. That's apparent with the decision in this bill to abolish the ATO's Small Business Superannuation Clearing House. Small businesses today can pay a lump sum of all their employees' superannuation contributions to the clearing house along with their employees' super details. The clearing house then makes the necessary payments to the employee's individual super fund. This saves small businesses a truckload of paperwork by letting them make one bulk payment instead of dozens to every employee's individual fund. That will be gone with this bill. Small businesses will have to take care of dozens of extra super payments, and they will be penalised 60 per cent if they are later than seven days from payday.

Nonetheless, a lot of the blame for small-business hardship must be directed at the minister for climate change and sending Australia broke, Minister Chris Bowen. Unaffordable energy is driving the country to ruin. This legislation has come into this Senate at the same time as the government announcing it would require super funds to invest almost $2 trillion of Australia's super money in the United States. That's how much this Labor government cares about jobs for Australians. They are taking an amount equal to one-half of all the money in super funds in Australia at 30 June this year and sending it to America over a 10-year period. Prime Minister, superannuation is not your money! Yet the government is sending your super overseas to grow the American economy.

Imagine how many breadwinner jobs could be created in Australia with the $2 trillion being invested right here in projects like the Capricornia project, an integrated rail, steel and concrete project, to provide Australia with security on steel, ceramics, fertiliser, explosives and pharmaceutical precursors—steel, the foundation of modern civilisation. Instead, young people will be competing with millions of new arrivals in a labour market that's currently in a race to the bottom of wages, conditions and security—Prime Minister, in case you're not aware of it despite so many people shouting it from the streets, stop mass migration—a trend this bill will make worse.

The Albanese government is pursuing policies that ensure young Australians don't have the abundance, wealth and income necessary to buy their own home in a country with more resources than any other country per capita. Instead, young people will have to rent from union super funds and predatory wealth funds like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and First State. Putting a roof over a young couple's heads is critical to starting a family. Measures like this, combined with over migration, mass migration and unaffordable energy, will continue to steal opportunity from our young people. Never has a generation been so lied to as the people aged today between 18 and 45. One Nation opposes this bill because One Nation supports employment, workers and small businesses. We support a fair go and fairness for all.