Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I table an addendum to the explanatory memorandum relating to the bills and move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech es read as follows

TREASURY LAWS AMENDMENT (PAYDAY SUPERANNUATION) BILL 2025

Today I am proud to introduce the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Bill 2025.

This bill reforms our superannuation system to help ensure more Australians get the secure retirement they need and deserve.

From waiters and nurses—

To builders and teachers—

Aged carers and hairdressers—

This bill makes sure their superannuation is paid on time.

Workers should be paid their super at the same time they are paid their salary and wages.

That's exactly what this bill enshrines into law.

It is a meaningful change that will take effect from July next year.

It's a change that will strengthen Australia's superannuation system.

And it's a change that will help deliver a more secure retirement for millions of Australian workers.

Workers will benefit from more frequent and earlier super contributions, that will grow and compound over their working life.

For the average 25-year-old workers' retirement balance, this is the equivalent of receiving an extra $6,000 in today's dollars.

If a worker is missing out on their super the impact is even more significant.

In a typical unpaid super case for a 35-year-old, recovering their super leaves their retirement balance more than $30,000 better off in today's dollars.

The need for this reform is clear and compelling.

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

On the most recent financial year data, there was almost $5.2 billion in unpaid super that should have gone to workers.

That's $5.2 billion that should be helping thousands of Australians in their retirement but isn't.

This issue disproportionately affects more vulnerable Australians and women.

That's because those on lower paid, casual and insecure work—who are more likely to be women—are most at risk of missing out on their super.

Super is an entitlement of workers, like salary or wages, and unpaid super is a form of wage theft.

This bill will help put a stop to it.

It will also help the Australian Taxation Office enforce the law and more quickly identify employers not making contributions.

Currently, over a third of outstanding super debt is owed by insolvent businesses.

This is because unpaid super is being picked up too late.

When the ATO responds to an employee complaint, they are investigating almost two years of potential unpaid super, on average.

As part of this reform, we're also investing into the ATO's capabilities, so it can detect suspected non-payment of super in near real time.

There is a productivity dividend here too.

Smaller, more frequent super contributions will help employers manage their payroll more smoothly.

This legislation also redesigns the superannuation guarantee charge to be fit-for-purpose and make Payday Super work.

The current charge is a blunt tool that isn't tailored to employers' circumstances.

And it is complicated for employers to correct late contributions and calculate their liability.

The redesigned charge will prompt employers to quickly rectify late or missed superannuation contributions.

And it simplifies the process.

Employers will no longer need to choose which period their late contribution should count towards or calculate their own liability.

This will all happen automatically.

At the same time, the new charge will deliver significant consequences for employers that repeatedly fail to pay their workers or let super go unpaid for long periods.

And it will make sure workers are accurately compensated for lost earnings if their employer is late in paying their contributions.

We thank the unions, industry, businesses and the broader community for their feedback, engagement and views to get to this point.

From the years of advocacy for change, through the consultation on the policy design in 2023 and more recently the draft legislation and ongoing engagement with the ATO working group.

We recognise that implementing Payday Super will require an economy-wide transition.

Not just for employers but also software providers, clearing houses and super funds.

Because of this, the ATO has advised it intends to consult on its approach to compliance for the 12 months after the change starts.

The ATO's approach will differentiate between low and high-risk employers.

This approach will mean that employers who are making the effort to pay contributions in line with each pay cycle will fall into the low-risk category.

This approach will address the feedback we've heard to ensure we are getting the implementation of this policy right, and workers and businesses will be better for it.

At the core of the economic plan we laid out in our budget earlier this year is a simple objective.

Our government is ensuring more Australians earn more, keep more of what they earn and retire with more too.

That's what this legislation is about.

You can see that in everything we've done since coming to government in the superannuation sector.

It's why we legislated the objective of super—to provide income for a secure retirement.

We've increased the superannuation guarantee, so it has finally reached 12 per cent.

We expanded the coverage of the superannuation performance test from around 80 products to more than 800 in 2023.

We legislated to align financial reporting requirements by funds with those of public companies.

We've also announced mandatory service standards.

And we're better targeting superannuation tax concessions and reforming the retirement phase of superannuation.

Our plan is making a meaningful difference, and wages are moving in the right direction again.

In the five quarters leading up to the 2022 election, real wages fell in annual terms.

They have now grown for the last seven.

We've recorded the strongest annual real wages growth in five years.

We're now on the longest run of real wages growth above 0.7 per cent in a decade.

And real incomes per capita are growing now too.

This legislation is another important step in implementing that plan.

It's about getting your super when you get your salary.

So there's more super savings for more Australians and more secure retirements.

And that's why we are proud to introduce it to the House.

Full details of the measure are contained in the Explanatory Memorandum.

SUPERANNUATION GUARANTEE CHARGE AMENDMENT BILL 2025

Today I am also introducing the Superannuation Guarantee Charge Amendment Bill 2025.

This bill works in conjunction with the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Bill 2025 to make sure superannuation is paid on time.

The amendments in this bill will ensure the superannuation guarantee charge is imposed for any day wages are paid and there is a shortfall in contributions.

For all the reasons I outlined in my previous speech, I commend it to the House.

Full details of the measure are contained in the Explanatory Memorandum.

James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to 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.

Ellie Whiteaker (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor created our superannuation system following hard fought campaigns by union members right across the country. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Bill 2025 delivers on once-in-a-generation reforms to the superannuation system led by this government. It ensures that superannuation is paid at the same time as wages. From 1 July 2026, employers must ensure contributions reach a worker's fund within seven business days of payday. It closes a gap in unpaid super and helps workers get what they are owed. It also modernises the Superannuation Guarantee Charge Amendment Bill 2025, simplifying employer obligations and compensating employees for lost earnings.

Stolen super costs 3.3 million Australians $5.7 billion—money that should be in workers' retirement accounts. Unpaid super is wage theft, plain and simple, and the problem with a quarterly system is that it hides nonpayment for months or even years. If a business were to collapse, the money is often gone. This new system will make non-payment visible almost immediately. Ultimately, it's about fairness. Workers should be paid the money they earn when they earn it.

This is a particularly important reform for women, for young people and for migrant workers. One in four working women in Australia are underpaid super every year, missing on average $1,300 annually. Across the population, that adds up to $1.9 billion a year and more than $15 billion over the past decade in unpaid super owed to women. And we know women already retire with significantly less super than men, so missed payments make that gap even harder to close. A 30-year-old on average wages who misses a single year of super ends up with $25,000 less in retirement savings. These workers are often in child care, aged care, nursing, community services—some of the most important workers in our country, dominated by women and often on lower pay. This reform goes to ensuring that those workers as well as every single worker across our country can retire with dignity and security.

Stolen super also disproportionately impacts young people, with almost one in three workers in their 20s or 30s having had their super stolen at some point in their careers. Unions have campaigned for this change for years because they know superannuation is workers' money; it is not cash flow for employers. The ACTU's assistant secretary, Joseph Mitchell, put it very well recently:

Paying super on pay day means some workers will retire with tens of thousands of dollars more in superannuation, not just by reducing super theft but by getting their money earning compound interest faster.

…   …   …

If we're serious about tackling intergenerational inequality, we must stop super theft and pay day super is critical to stopping super theft.

This bill goes some way to stopping that theft. It guarantees that super moves with wages, making it easier for workers to track their payments. It's about building super balances and increasing trust in our superannuation system. This is, of course, part of Labor's broader commitment to superannuation. The super guarantee is rising to 12 per cent. We'll be paying super on government funded paid parental leave and increasing penalties to prosecute deliberate superannuation theft. In contrast, the coalition has previously sought to cut the super rate to nine per cent—a move that would cost the average worker $165,000 in retirement savings. And so this bill cements Labor's position as the only party, the only government, that will protect workers' super and their right to retire in dignity.

Today I want to make a really important call to workers right across the country and especially to young workers, who might think they don't need to worry too much about their super, because retirement is a long way off. But super is a part of your pay. It's not a bonus or a gift, and every dollar that isn't paid is a dollar stolen from your future. It is theft and, in fact, many dollars stolen or lost from your super. Young people stand to lose the most when they don't check their super. There's over $17.8 billion in unclaimed super sitting across millions of accounts. This could be your money. A lot of it belongs to young workers who have changed jobs, worked casually or never linked their accounts. Time is your biggest advantage. Compound interest is the most powerful force in super. Money paid into your fund in your 20s has decades to grow, and missing even a year can cost you tens of thousands of dollars, if not more, by retirement.

And so, to young Australians out there: check your super balance. Download the app on your phone. I recently downloaded the MySuper app on my phone. It's a great way to check your balance and to make sure that your super is being paid on time. When this bill comes into effect if this bill passes this parliament—I really, really hope it will—your super will need to be paid along with your wages, and so it's a great opportunity to check and make sure that you are being paid what you are owed. Your future self will thank you.

We know that many young people are starting behind. The average super balance for a 25-year-old is about $24,000. A single year of unpaid super can cut your eventual retirement balance by $25,000 in today's dollars. Disengagement is common and costly. Over a third of gen Z and millennials have no retirement plan and rarely check their fund. It's like walking around with a hole in your wallet.

Australians believe in the superannuation system. It's become a fundamental part of our workers protection framework, but too many are missing out. A national survey found that three-quarters of people trust their super fund to act in their best interests, but engagement drops sharply amongst people from non-English-speaking backgrounds and gig economy workers, who often don't know what they're entitled to or how to check if they're being paid their super. That's why payday super matters. Paying super at the same time as wages makes it visible, trackable and fair. It means that these particularly vulnerable workers from young and culturally diverse backgrounds can see the money land as they get paid, not months and months later. Your super is your future income. Alongside your home, if you're lucky enough to own one, it will likely be your largest asset in retirement. Keeping an eye on it now is the difference between scraping by and living more comfortably in retirement. This reform puts the power back where it belongs—with workers. You'll know if your super is being paid, and you'll be able to see it grow as you go through your working life.

The start date for this bill of 1 July 2026 gives businesses, payroll providers and funds time to upgrade their systems. The ATO will apply a phased compliance approach for the first year, focusing on support for low-risk employers. The ATO will have real-time visibility of contributions through Single Touch Payroll reporting, helping it detect nonpayment sooner. The reform will also retire the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House and align payment systems right across the country. For employers already doing the right thing, this simply aligns the law with existing practice, and, for those who will take some time to transition, this bill allows them to do that. This bill means that workers' super will grow faster through more frequent compounding. A 25-year-old worker will retire with around $6,000 more in their account, thanks to earlier investment returns. For a 35-year-old recovering unpaid super, the benefit exceeds $30,000. Ultimately, this reform will lift retirement incomes and continue the trust in our superannuation system.

Payday super is a simple but powerful idea: when you get your pay, you get your super. It will go a long way to strengthening our superannuation system—the system that Labor built—closing the gender gap and protecting our most vulnerable workers from super theft. It's good for workers, it's good for employers and it is good for the economy. Every Australian deserves to retire in dignity, and that is what this bill delivers.

Corinne Mulholland (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Superannuation is one of Australia's greatest nation-building achievements. It ensures that every Australian, not just the wealthy, can retire with dignity and security, and, of course, it is a signature policy that was introduced by Labor. After a lifetime of work, every Australian should be able to retire with independence and less reliance on the age pension. So, when super isn't paid properly, it robs Australian workers of their future. That's why the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Bill 2025 is so important—to make sure people are paid what they're owed. This is critically important because even small amounts of unpaid super mean less money compounding in your account over decades. That can cut tens of thousands of dollars from retirement savings, which can mean the difference between comfort and hardship in later life, especially for lower paid and casual workers, who can least afford to miss out on their superannuation.

This isn't just a technical change to payroll systems; it is about fairness. It's about ensuring that, when a worker earns a dollar of superannuation, that money actually reaches their superannuation account—on time, every time. Right now, far too many Australians are being robbed of their retirement savings. According to the Super Members Council, 3.3 million Australians were not paid the super they earned in 2022-23. That is not a rounding error; that is one in four Australian workers. The total cost is $5.8 billion a year or about $110 million every single week—disappearing from the retirement savings of honest, hardworking people. In my home state of Queensland, the problem is particularly stark: 680,000 workers—which is nearly 30 per cent of the workforce or one in three workers—missed out on an average of $1,720 each in unpaid super last year. Over the past six years, that's a staggering $5.7 billion totally taken from Queensland workers' nest eggs.

I'd like to put that into some further context for the seats that I represent and look after as duty seats in Queensland. In the seat of Longman, 23,950 people lost an average of $1,460. That's 28 per cent of workers in that electorate. In Fairfax, we also saw 28 per cent of the workforce underpaid by $1,590. In Fisher, 29 per cent of the workforce was denied an average of $1,670 of entitlements. That's 22,400 people. It gets worse the further out west you head in Queensland. In Wright, 23,950 workers missed out on $1,720. In Groom, 30 per cent of the workforce missed out on a whopping $1,730. That's 22,300 affected workers in the Toowoomba area.

Superannuation isn't a luxury; it is a promise—a promise that, after a lifetime of work, Australians can retire with dignity and security. When super isn't paid, that promise is broken. The damage doesn't stop there. Every dollar of unpaid super is a dollar that doesn't get the chance to grow and compound over time. If we don't fix this now, the average Australian worker could be short-changed more than $30,000 from their final retirement balance. That's why Labor's payday superannuation guarantee is so important. This legislation will require employers to put super at the same time as wages, not months later. It's a simple, commonsense reform aligning superannuation with payday so that workers can see their contributions flow in real time.

Payday super will create a better system for workers and employers alike. It will give the ATO, businesses and workers the ability to track and address unpaid superannuation sooner, before debts grow and companies collapse. Crucially, it will ensure that every dollar owed in superannuation starts earning investment returns right away, building stronger retirement savings for every Australian. Australians overwhelmingly support this reform. A national survey found that more than 70 per cent of Australians want payday super laws to start from 1 July 2026, because people understand that this isn't just about payroll compliance; it's about doing what is right.

This reform continues Labor's proud legacy of strengthening Australia's world-leading superannuation system. By passing the payday superannuation guarantee, we can stop the $5.7 billion drain on Australians' superannuation savings and ensure that every worker's super grows and compounds from day 1.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Lisa Darmanin (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Bill 2025 and the Superannuation Guarantee Charge Amendment Bill 2025 and will attempt to address some of the wild misconceptions we've heard about what this legislation seeks to do. Quite simply, if you earn it, you should be paid it on time, every time. We would not accept regular wages being paid six months after they were earned, and it is about time we start thinking about superannuation in exactly the same way. When superannuation is paid late, workers lose out twice: firstly, because it's their money, and they should have it in their fund on time but, secondly, because delayed contributions mean losing decades of compounding savings that follow. Payday super fixes that. Its effect will be transformative to a dignified retirement.

Unpaid super is no small problem in this country. Across Australia, 3.3 million workers were not paid the super that they earned in the financial year 2022-23. That underpayment—or, let's call it out for what it is, wage theft or super theft, on a grand scale—amounted to $5.7 billion each year or $110 million each and every single week. For the average worker in Australia, that means an unpaid super balance of $1,730, which compounds over time to a shortfall of more than $30,000 at retirement for workers. For Victorian workers alone, unpaid super in the 2022-23 financial year affected 85,000 people, a staggering almost 30 per cent of the workforce. Over the past six years Victorian workers have collectively had $7.3 billion stolen from them in unpaid superannuation. These are not abstract numbers. These are real dollars that could have grown to provide security, independence and dignity in retirement.

At the core of our super system is something every school maths student knows—or they should—the power of compounding interest. This is the quiet engine that turns modest regular contributions into a secure retirement. Every dollar that's paid on time earns returns and returns on those returns year after year. When contributions are delayed, that compounding is disrupted. A worker missing $200 a fortnight doesn't just lose $200. They lose the decades of growth extracted from that $200. So over a 30-year career, those interruptions compound as well. Payday super ensures contributions flow regularly and compound just as the system was designed for, protecting the future income of millions of workers. It also brings super into alignment with modern-day payroll practices. Our current system of quarterly super payments is nothing more than a nasty head-in-a-bucket hangover from the olden days of analogue bookkeeping. This change is bringing workplaces and superannuation into the 21st century. Electronic payroll methods mean that paying super with wages rarely involves any extra work for business. This is contrary to the contribution that we heard earlier from Senator Paterson. This legislation will in fact save businesses the hassle of time-consuming quarterly reconciliations and mitigate the risks of getting stuck with hefty unpaid superannuation liabilities.

Payday super ensures that contributions are paid when wages are, without leaving workers waiting, worrying or chasing their own money. It reflects the way that people work today—whether you work fulltime, part-time, across multiple employers, casual hours or varied income patterns. Our retirement system must keep pace with the workforce that it serves. Most employers, I would say, do the right thing, and they want to do the right thing. They recognise that superannuation is part of remuneration and not an optional extra. But this is too important to put in the hands of employer good will. Good will does not compound at retirement.

For years, unfortunately, we have seen some employers who have treated superannuation as though it was negotiable. They have delayed payments to manage their own cashflow. They have ignored their obligations until regulators, unions or superannuation funds intervene. They have exploited gaps between reporting and enforcement. At the end of that chain is a person, a hard-working person, whose savings are diminished, whose retirement is smaller and whose next life phase is worse off as a result. The cost of these delays is immense. I think it is worth repeating those numbers for each week—a staggering $110 million that workers have earned never reaches their funds. That is 5.7 billion stolen from workers per year. That is the nightmare that we are talking about today and what we are seeking to fix not what some of those opposite would have you believe. This wage theft is unacceptable, and this government will not accept it. To employers who have relied on that delay: those days are over. Workers' superannuation is not a petty cash tin for you to dip into. The law will now catch up with the principle that Australian workers already understood, that superannuation is their money. It belongs to them from the day that it is earned.

The Australian tax office will have greater oversight to identify noncompliance sooner. Information flows will be clearer and more frequent. The ATO will also receive additional resourcing to help it detect underpaid super payments earlier, and the government will set enhanced targets for the ATO for the recovery of payments. Workers will be able to see their contributions arriving when they should, and regulators will be empowered to intervene when issues arise instead of years after returns have disappeared down the drain.

The preventive impact that this has on our social security system is also worth calling out. By reducing the billions of dollars in lost superannuation, we enable the retirement system to function as it was intended and consequently reduce reliance on the age pension and other social supports. Good retirement policy is responsible policy and the retirement system working as it should. When we legislate for timely superannuation payments, we reinforce a culture of compliance across the workforce. Paying super when wages are paid will mean a 25-year-old median income earner currently receiving their super quarterly and wages fortnightly could be around $6,000 better off at retirement. More frequent super payments will make employers' payroll management smoother, with fewer liabilities building up on their books.

Payday super will also make it easier for workers to keep track of their payments and harder for them to be exploited by disreputable employers. We say to those workers that their entitlements matter and that wage theft and super theft are unacceptable. It was a Labor government that proudly introduced compulsory superannuation, and it was a Labor government that proudly defended it through years and decades of opposition scaremongering. It is, again, a Labor government that strengthens it for the workforce of today and protects it for the retirees of tomorrow. The story of superannuation is a story of Labor governments building systems that endure and reforms that compound, like the savings that this bill seeks to protect. This government has acted decisively. We legislated the objective of superannuation. We lifted the superannuation guarantee to 12 per cent from July 2025. We strengthened performance testing, and we ensured superannuation is paid on government funded paid parental leave.

Payday super is the next critical step. It is the reform that ensures workers are paid on time every time, because a dignified retirement is not a luxury. We know that low-income workers, including young people in casual work, women in low-paid industries and migrant workers, are disproportionately affected by loopholes in the system. They are more likely to be in part-time or casual work, and women, in particular, are more likely to take time away from the workforce to raise families and for caring responsibilities.

Every time super is paid late or not paid at all, it has a profound impact on the end balance of these workers. When they took parental leave and did not earn super for that period of time, that had a profound impact on their balances as well. For this reason, payday super is a gender equality measure. It will narrow the retirement income gap for millions of Australian women. When super is not paid regularly, those compounding gaps widen. Every delayed contribution deepens the gender retirement gap. On average, as we know, women retire with around 25 per cent less superannuation than men. In addition to this, women live longer, on average, by four years, and so their money needs to be stretched further. We know that women over 55 are the fastest-growing cohort experiencing housing insecurity and homelessness. The gender inequality in the superannuation system is linked to two major factors: the gender pay gap and the career interruptions that are caused when women, predominantly, take time out of the workforce to raise children.

Let me turn to the gender pay gap in superannuation. Contributions are a direct percentage of someone's wage, so the gender pay gap is a critical contributor to women's superannuation balances remaining lower than men's. Australia's workforce is one of the most gender segregated in the world. Industries that attract lower wages are dominated by women workers, and it is unfortunately a simple proposition that, when you earn less, the percentage calculation which amounts to your super contribution is also less. The implications for our country are enormous. Over the last seven years, women's superannuation contributions were underpaid by a whopping $10.8 billion. It is staggering that, over the last seven years, Australian women earned but were denied that amount in their retirement savings. I am proud to be part of a government that is actively working to close this gap and to close the retirement gap. Australian women deserve better than insecurity after a lifetime of underpaid and underrecognised labour.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator, as it is 1.30, we will proceed to two-minute statements. You will be in continuation.