Tammy Tyrrell (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In a land far away, I was 17 years old when I got my first job. I was young, impressionable and ready to work hard to prove myself and put a bit of money away for the future. Back then, wages were modest and super wasn't mandatory, and that was just the way things were. You'd expect that to have changed by now, and it has for adults. But, for 17-year-olds, like I was back then, and for most workers under 18 today, not much has changed at all.

If you're under 18 and you don't work more than 30 hours a week, you're not entitled to superannuation contributions. It doesn't matter how hard you work, how reliable you are or how long you stay in the job. Some employers do the right thing and pay super anyway, and that's fantastic. But the problem is they don't have to, and fairness shouldn't depend on how generous your boss happens to be. The result is that young workers miss out on thousands of dollars by the time they retire—it could be $10,000 or more, which might not sound huge to some, but it's real money, real coin. It's groceries for a year. It's the difference between having a full fridge and worrying about making ends meet.

This is about fairness. The cafes and shops we rely on are staffed by young people that are giving up their after-school hours and weekends. They're working just as hard as the adults beside them—doing the same jobs and doing them well. We like to say Australia has a fair superannuation system, but a fair system shouldn't exclude workers just because of their age. It's time to scrap the under-18 carve-out, get rid of the 30-hour rule and make sure every worker earns super from their first hour of work—no matter how old they are.