Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

Gravy burns, burnt coffee and long shifts: my memories of being a 15-year-old hospo worker in Ballarat. Like millions of young Australians, I wasn't just a teenager with a job; I was a worker. And workers deserve to be paid properly. But right now, money young people earn isn't going into their super. It's staying in the bank accounts of billion-dollar corporations like Coles and Woolworths—more than $400 million that should be helping young Australians build their future, instead of building corporate profits. Funny how that works. Maybe it's because supermarket giants donate to Labor and young workers don't.

When Labor and the Liberals team up against the Greens, it's ordinary people who pay the price. This time, it's 500,000 young workers across this country. Labor and the Liberals have decided that if you are under 18, you don't deserve super. And what's their excuse? That most teenagers work fewer than 30 hours a week. Of course they do; they're at school or they're studying. They're doing exactly what every adult tells them to do: get an education and build a future. So why are they being financially punished for it? Why?

Every dollar of super you miss out on when you're young is a dollar that misses out on decades of compound growth. That's not a technicality; that's money taken from young people's futures and handed to big business. The Greens say enough. To every young worker watching this: when you vote for the first time, remember who fought for your future and remember who voted to take money out of your retirement and leave it in corporate profits. Young people deserve super. Corporate giants like Woolies and Coles do not need more help to fill their bank coffers.