Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to my private senator's bill, the Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Fair Super for Young Workers) Bill 2026. The Greens are proud to bring forward this bill because we believe that Australia's superannuation system should apply to every worker. It's time for young workers to be paid the super they deserve. Right now, workers under the age of 18 are only guaranteed super if they work more than 30 hours a week for the same employer. As we know, the vast majority do not. Ninety-three per cent of young workers do not work this much, mostly because of their school and study commitments and the casual nature of their employment. We want them at school. We want them to be studying, but we also want them, where they work, to get paid super in a fair way alongside everyone they work with.

In practice, what's going on right now is that hundreds of thousands of young Australians who are under the age of 18 are missing out. Every year, 530,000 young teenage workers are denied the astonishing sum of $411 million in super for no reason other than their age. Young workers look after us in our cafes and supermarkets and shops, in hospitality venues and on construction sites in communities across our country. They cover weekend shifts, late shifts and public holidays. They pay tax. Yet many of them are denied compulsory superannuation contributions simply because of their age. Hundreds of thousands of young workers are being held back financially before they've even had a chance to get ahead. This discriminatory rule does not impact a marginal cohort. It's the typical experience of teenage workers.

The Greens believe that young workers should receive the same financial rights as everyone else. If you earn a wage, you should earn super. It's that simple. Australia's world-leading superannuation system exists because generations of workers and unions fought for the simple proposition that people deserve dignity in retirement. It was built on the foundation of universality, but it's not universal. For too long, Australia's superannuation system has failed young workers. The continued exclusion of workers under 18 who work fewer than 30 hours a week is a clear case of legislated age-based discrimination that no longer has any defensible policy rationale. When compulsory superannuation was introduced in the early 1990s, this carve-out was justified on the basis that fees and insurance premiums would erode small balances. That's what people were told. That's what the discussion was about. But that justification has been overtaken by decades of reform.

Today, fee caps and protections for low-balance accounts, alongside opt-in insurance settings for young workers, mean that even small super balances are preserved and grow over time. What remains is not a targeted safeguard but a blunt, discriminatory exclusion that denies young workers the same entitlement to deferred wages as every other worker. The rule draws an arbitrary line based on age and hours despite the fact that under-18s perform the same work for the same employers as their older counterparts. As a result, hundreds of thousands of young people are working, earning and contributing to the economy without receiving the superannuation that they should be legally entitled to.

Maintaining carve-outs of this kind undermines the integrity and the fairness of our system. Young workers are not immune from the rising costs of living. They are facing growing housing unaffordability challenges that are very severe across our country. They are especially insecure in their employment and they have massive and rising debt from the costs of education, which have changed so dramatically in the last few decades. Young women in particular are disproportionately affected by this age based exclusion. Women retire with substantially less super than men, and casual workers, part-time workers and workers in feminised industries—all the care sectors—are also accumulating lower retirement savings. When we deny young workers super, we reinforce inequalities that follow people throughout their working lives.

The consequence of the current exclusion extends far beyond a teenager's first pay packet. Superannuation works best when contributions start early. It's essential that young workers receive super on every dollar earned from the moment they start work. Modelling shows that young workers could be $11,000 better off by retirement through the power of compound returns. This bill removes this unfair, outdated and discriminatory exclusion. It removes the existing legislative exemption that allows regulations to exclude employees that are under 18 from super guarantee coverage, and it repeals the associated regulatory provisions that currently deny super to too many young workers. It will ensure that all employees under the age of 18 are entitled to compulsory employer super regardless of the number of hours they work.

There is strong public support for this change. Eighty-five per cent of Australians believe that anyone in paid work should receive super, which is a view shared across all parts of the community, and 73 per cent of Australians support changing the law so that workers get paid super at all ages. Only seven per cent oppose that. This bill supports the principle that every Australian worker should receive super contributions from the first dollar earned, irrespective of age or hours of work, and it aligns with our vision of a truly universal superannuation system.

Young workers know this is unfair. Take Sarah, who is a young worker from Western Australia. She is 18 and has been working since she was 15. She works at a discount supermarket. Sarah's super balance would've exceeded $3,000 by now if contributions had been paid while she was under 18. It's nearly three times what she's actually holding in her super balance now. When she was asked how she felt about this, she said: 'Not good. That's a lot of money not paid, and I'm doing the same work. That's just not fair.'

Right now, this exclusion entrenches a two-tier system of workplace rights, where age determines access to retirement savings and where some of the lowest paid workers are systematically left behind. This is not a rule supporting small business. It's a system that allows some of the most profitable multibillion-dollar, big corporations in our country to deny young workers their basic entitlements. It's a direct transfusion of money out of the pockets of kids under 18 into the bottom line of some of our biggest and most wealthy corporations. The question is no longer whether this is fair but who is it working for, and the answer is big businesses. This became clear earlier this year through a Greens initiated inquiry into this exclusion. This important inquiry showed that most large employers of young Australians do not provide their under-18 workers with this basic workplace entitlement, despite raking in massive profits on the back of their very cheap labour.

Through the inquiry process, the committee wrote to a large range of Australian employers, seeking information, for the first time, regarding the payment of super to employees under the age of 18. The committee wrote to 41 companies that are the biggest employers of workers under 18 and asked them to give us their data. 'Tell us how you are treating your under-18 workforce and whether you are paying them super.'

The committee received 37 responses, which are summarised in the chair's report. It makes interesting reading. Take the supermarket duopoly, for example. Coles, who employ around 12,000 workers under 18, do not pay them super regardless of the hours they work. Coles's their profits last year? $1.08 billion. Woolworths, who employ around 11,500 people under 18 in their enterprises, and another 1,150 in Big W, also do not pay super, regardless of the hours those young people work. And Woolworths' profits? $1.38 billion.

These responses reveal a simple truth at the heart of the superannuation loophole for under18 workers: most of Australia's biggest corporations are denying retirement savings to the young workers who help generate their massive profits. This is not about whether big business can afford to pay super to young workers—they can; they clearly can. The fact that some employers, such as Bunnings, Aldi, JB Hi-Fi and Priceline, choose to pay their under-18-year-old workers super, regardless of how many hours they work, shows that this is possible. It is a matter of discretion to those big corporations. And they are pocketing those profits rather than doing the right thing like those companies, like Bunnings, that are paying their young people their super entitlements and what are fair super entitlements. Instead, the vast majority of large employers use a business model that relies on insecure, low-paid, low-hour teenage labour while denying these workers the same retirement rights as everyone else, as everyone over 18 who works alongside them working more than 30 hours a week.

The biggest employers of young workers are large corporations that are making millions, and sometimes billions, in profit every year. They have no trouble finding money for executive bonuses and shareholder payouts but they are denying their youngest, most insecure, lowest paid workers their basic entitlements. So our position in the Greens is straightforward: if you're old enough to work, if you're old enough to pay tax, you're old enough to earn super. Billion-dollar corporations should not be building their massive profits on the backs of teenagers missing out on fair entitlement rights and their savings into their retirement, and the Labor government should not be letting them do it—as you well know. As multiple submissions to this inquiry made clear, there is no longer a credible policy basis for treating young workers differently.

The inquiry's majority report was very clear: support paying super on every dollar earned, including extending superannuation to workers under 18 as part of a long-term pathway to universal superannuation. However, the chair's report, the conclusion, denied those young workers the fairness of this in their earnings. It's a classic major party play: agree in principle, promise more consultation and leave vulnerable people waiting for fair treatment and for long overdue reforms. Well, Australian workers don't want another roundtable; they don't want a consultation paper. They don't need that to decide what's fair in their workplaces. They've been waiting for decades. We have the evidence. Enough delay; it's time to act.

This bill is the third time the Greens have had a go at pushing, in this chamber, to make this thing happen. We took this policy to the last election. Last year, we tried to amend the government's payday super bill to grant all young workers the right to super from their employers. Labor had a chance to back young workers then, but they decided to side with the very wealthy one per cent over ordinary young working people. And then, in July, we pushed again to partially allow this exclusion in regulations. And, again, Labor had the chance to back young workers. Instead, they partnered with the antiworker coalition over here, and One Nation, to block it. Now's their chance to make it right. It's time to stop boosting the profits of some of Australia's biggest and most profitable corporations by letting them continue ripping off young workers by taking money out of the pockets of those kids under 18 and putting it into the bottom line of some of our most wealthy corporations.

From recent attacks on our superannuation system from the Liberals and One Nation, we can see it's clear we cannot take a backward step. One Nation points to the need for cash-strapped Australians to have easier access to superannuation. We can't trust this mob, One Nation, with our super system. The solution to Australians being cash strapped isn't to let them raid their super—unless they're in dire circumstances in which they can. It's time to make sure that their real wages actually increase and that we deal structurally with the problems of the cost-of-living crisis out there—something that One Nation has voted against in this parliament over and over again.

In his Press Club speech last week, Senator Bragg called compulsory superannuation 'an illiberal experiment'. He also likened giving super to young workers to giving it to cats and dogs. Did the Liberal Party actually want to try and explain to a young person why they don't deserve super? Have a go at that. They have no argument, and young people will not be hoodwinked by that kind of rubbish.

The Greens are the only party who've been trying in this chamber over quite some time to close this unfair loophole for young workers and give them the justice they deserve in their working lives. We want super extended to under-18s, no matter how many hours they work, and this bill will do exactly that. Super should be a universal right and it should be paid fairly. Every worker deserves their super, whether they're 16 or 60.

Because of Greens pressure, Labor amended their national party platform just recently to explicitly support paying super on every dollar earned, including for workers under 18. Well, now's your chance. Don't hold back. Don't, for the third time, say 'no' to those young workers who know what's fair. I call on the Labor government to follow its own policy platform and support this bill, and I commend the bill to the Senate.

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

Thank you, Senator Barbara Pocock, for your passionate advocacy on this issue. Compulsory superannuation is one of Labor's greatest achievements and one of the most successful examples of long-term economic nation-building anywhere in the world. For more than three decades, compulsory superannuation has transformed retirement in Australia. Millions of Australians who would once have relied entirely on the age pension now retire with savings of their own. More importantly, more Australians are retiring with dignity—dignity that they deserve after their lifetime working contribution. Australians collectively own over $4 trillion in retirement savings, and, importantly, workers receive a fairer share of the wealth that they help create.

That is why Labor has always been the party of superannuation. We created compulsory superannuation and we defended it when others opposed it—and we always will. We have continued to strengthen it whenever we have had the opportunity. Since coming to government, we have delivered a significant reform agenda in this area. We legislated the objective of superannuation. We have delivered the increase in the superannuation guarantee to 12 per cent. We have strengthened the performance test. We have embedded superannuation in the National Employment Standards. We have ensured super is paid on government funded paid parental leave, and we introduced mandatory service standards because Australians deserve not only strong investment returns but quality service from their funds. That record is important because it demonstrates a very clear principle: Labor believes Australia's superannuation system should continue to grow stronger. We do not view superannuation as something to be wound back. We do not see it as a burden. We see it for what it is—an investment in the retirement security of working Australians. Labor built Australia's superannuation system. We have defended it when others sought to undermine it, and we will continue to strengthen it for future generations of Australian workers.

Senator Barbara Pocock referred to our national conference recently. At the ALP National Conference in July, I was very proud to be the seconder, alongside Dr Mulino, the Assistant Treasurer, to continue this commitment to strengthening superannuation through equal representation, sponsor nomination and the profit-to-member model that has been central to the success of Australia's superannuation system. That reflects who we are as a party. We are never complacent about superannuation. We are always looking for opportunities to strengthen and improve retirement outcomes for working Australians.

Yes, there is always more to be done on the pathway to universal superannuation. To that point, delegates at the national conference also unanimously supported the inclusion of a commitment in Labor's national platform to extend compulsory superannuation contributions to all workers under the age of 18, regardless of how many hours they work. We should be ambitious about strengthening retirement outcomes. We should be ambitious about ensuring every worker has the opportunity to build financial security in retirement from the very beginning of their working life.

One of the most significant reforms the Albanese government has delivered in this space very recently is payday super. Payday super tackles a problem that cost Australian workers more than $6 billion in unpaid superannuation in the last financial year alone. That is $6 billion that should have gone into workers retirement savings. It is $6 billion lost from the retirement incomes of Australians, whether retirement is four years away or 40 years away.

Earlier this year, the Senate Economics Legislation Committee conducted an inquiry into the payday superannuation regulations. The committee heard from superannuation funds, unions, employer groups, payroll providers and businesses across the country. One of the issues raised during that inquiry was whether compulsory superannuation coverage should be extended to all workers under the age of 18. As Chair of the committee, I note that the committee recognised extending superannuation coverage to under-18 workers as part of the long-term pathway towards universal superannuation. I was very pleased to have that recognition in our report.

The committee also recognised that payday super represents one of the biggest changes to the administration of superannuation in decades. Employers, software providers, payroll companies, superannuation funds and regulators are all currently focused on implementing those reforms. The committee therefore concluded that successfully embedding payday super should be the immediate priority. It also recognised that extending superannuation coverage to under-18 workers would require further consultation and detailed work with workers, employers, unions and the superannuation sector.

We want this policy approach to be carefully developed, which is the same approach that we have taken throughout all of our reforms in this area. Labor supports stronger retirement outcomes and a fairer superannuation system, but we believe in getting major superannuation reform right. Superannuation reform, like all reform, works best when it is comprehensive, carefully designed and supported by proper consultation and analysis. Extending coverage to workers under 18 represents one part of the long-term journey towards universal superannuation.

I'd like to thank superannuation funds and other advocates who've been working towards reform to see universal superannuation and a strong super system. Super Members Council research estimates that about half a million young workers miss out on superannuation each year because of this rule. They estimate that this amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars in lost super contributions.

For all workers, the younger you are when you begin working, the more powerful each dollar of superannuation becomes. The benefit of superannuation in your retirement is not simply the contribution itself; it is the power and the magic of the compounding returns over time. A contribution made at a younger age has decades longer to grow than a contribution made later in life. A relatively small amount contributed during your first job can, ultimately, be worth many times that amount in retirement. Time and compounding are extraordinarily powerful forces. That issue also has an important implication for women's retirement outcomes.

I suspect that not too many younger workers are sitting at home watching the Senate today. But, if there's one thing I wish every younger worker understood about superannuation, it is the power of compounding returns. It might not sound particularly exciting when you're working in your first shifts at the supermarket, cafe or local shop, but the reality is that the earlier money goes into your super account, the longer time it has to grow. If anyone wants a straightforward explanation, the Moneysmart website has some excellent tools and examples that show exactly how compounding works. Once you understand the magic of compounding, you understand why starting early really matters.

Last week I met with Dr Gemma Killen and colleagues from the Working Women's Alliance. I appreciate the time that they took to discuss these issues and the perspectives that they bring to this debate. They highlighted that young women are more likely than young men to work part-time jobs. They highlighted that women under 18 are more likely to be affected by the current exemption, and they highlighted the long-term impacts that missing out on superannuation contributions can have throughout a working life. We know that the super gender pay gap remains one of the biggest challenges facing our retirement income system. We know women retire with significantly less superannuation than men.

Likewise, I'd like to acknowledge the advocacy of organisations such as Rest and the Super Members Council. Rest has welcomed Labor's commitment to include this reform in the national platform. Importantly, they have also stressed the need for careful consideration, consultation and staged implementation. The Super Members Council has similarly supported the objective, while recognising the importance of allowing businesses time to adjust. That is a critical point today, because supporting a policy objective is only one part of making good government policy. The other part is ensuring reforms are implemented successfully. Universal superannuation for under-18s is a principle supported across our party. As a party of government, we will take the time—Dr Mulino mentioned this in the National Press Club address that he made yesterday—to work through in consultation and through the budget processes. I very much look forward to being a part of this work within government and with all of the advocates to work through this issue.

But let's not forget the threats on compulsory superannuation that we've heard just over the last week. We can talk and we can debate very well about how we want to improve the system, and we will always continue to do that. But we also have to think about the threats, because the super wars seemingly never end in this place. It's funny or it would be funny if it weren't so dangerous or, frankly, just flat out hypocritical. One Nation had the chance here to back workers and back a pay rise for award-reliant and minimum-wage workers just mere months ago. Yet where were they? They were nowhere. They flat out rejected the idea. They talk about measures to ease the cost of living yet don't back a pay rise for workers. They want Australians to fund today's expenses by sacrificing tomorrow's retirement. This beggars belief. These are the threats that we have to deal with while we are currently trying to debate how we might advance the system. We know, of course, that One Nation has a long history of not supporting workers in this country. They voted against same job, same pay. They called cutting taxes for all Australians 'a joke' but said that tax cuts for property investors were desperately needed, and they have called to get rid of penalty rates.

Of course, the Liberals are a risk to all Australians when it comes to their retirement. At the Press Club last week—as Senator Barbara Pocock also identified—Senator Bragg referred to compulsory superannuation as 'a loss of liberty' and described super for young workers as super for cats and dogs. It's pretty easy to see whose side One Nation and the coalition are on, and it's not yours. It's clear that the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation are all the same in the end, and they will come after workers' wages, workers' rights and workers' superannuation. They all have the same agenda and are using the same tactics.

Labor takes a fundamentally different approach. We believe that superannuation should be strengthened. We believe retirement incomes should be protected, and we believe reforms should leave Australians with more security, not less. Labor supports stronger retirement outcomes. Labor supports a fairer superannuation system, which is exactly why one of the most important things this government has done is to legislate the objective of superannuation. For the first time, Australia now has in law a clear statement of what superannuation is for. The objective is simple: to preserve savings, to deliver income for a dignified retirement alongside government support in an equitable and sustainable way. That matters because superannuation should never be treated as a short-term savings account, a political football or a source of funding whenever a new idea comes along. Superannuation exists for one purpose: to help Australians retire with dignity and security after a lifetime of hard work.

By legislating that objective, Labor provided clarity to workers, certainty to superannuation sector and confidence for future generations of Australians saving for retirement. It also sends a very clear message about the future direction of superannuation policy in this country. We want to keep building and ending the super wars. As part of this, Labor supports continuing the conversation about how we expand opportunity and security for all Australian workers. But we also believe that reforms should be carefully designed, properly consulted on and implemented in the right sequence. That is why our immediate focus remains on the successful implementation of payday super. It is why we will continue engaging with unions, employers, young workers and the sector. It is why we will continue looking for opportunities to strengthen Australia's retirement income system.

Labor created superannuation, Labor has defended superannuation and Labor will continue always to strengthen superannuation because Labor is and always will be the party of superannuation. Our record shows this, and we will continue to do so carefully and methodically to ensure that we have a well-supported universal system to ensure that this great Labor legacy endures for the very, very long term.

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

This morning I am proud to speak in support of the Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Fair Super for Young Workers) Bill 2026, which was presented to the parliament by my colleague and friend Senator Barbara Pocock. This bill would ensure fair superannuation for young workers across the country, and it is a piece of legislation whose time has come.

Corporations making billion-dollar profits, stealing from young workers—that ain't it, that ain't on, that's not okay. Yet in Australia, under the law as we currently have it, if you are under the age of 18 and work fewer than 30 hours a week, you don't have to be paid super by your corporate employer. That's cooked. That's wrong. That's so wrong. Let's be really clear: 530,000 young workers who are below the age of 18 work less than 30 hours a week, so they are not entitled to super in Australia right now. What will this mean for them? What does it actually look like? It looks like about $411 million that they will not receive in their superannuation because of this law, setting them back significantly in terms of their savings and security for the rest of their lives. This makes me so angry.

We have had politicians in this debate contributing to this discussion. When asked about this issue, when young people, young workers, have said: 'This isn't fair. This isn't on. Where's our fair go?' the response of certain Liberal MPs has been to say: 'Well, if we pay workers under the age of 18 superannuation, what's next? Super for cats and dogs?' What a shameful, disgusting response to what is effectively legalised wage and retirement theft in this country.

A lot of folks in this place probably don't take a lot of time to talk to young workers, to listen to young workers, about their experience, about what it's actually like to work in the industries dominated by young workers. But we in the Greens have, and Senator Pocock has, and their voices and demands are represented in this bill. Let me tell you, it's hard work. You're doing the cleaning up. You're stacking the shelves. You're dealing with the grumpy folks. You're working between your school hours, or you're working between TAFE—that's often the case for young carers, for example—to be able to put a bit more money in the pot to pay the power bill or to pay the grocery bill, often to the very parasitic corporation—or should I actually say 'fresh food people'—that you may be working for.

These are the very corporations that proudly proclaim 'down down, prices are down' while your family is driven into the ground, because they cut your shifts unexpectedly or fire you after the holiday period is done. But you go back every time they put another ad out. You do as much as you can, for as long as you can, to contribute. You do all of this, and they don't pay your super because they aren't legally required to do so in Australia. There are some corporations that have, but the big ones don't. That's where the law should come in. That is where the government should act, because we know that if corporations are left to their own damned devices they will exploit their workers. I rather thought that a Labor government would understand that. You cannot make fairness and equality from an employer an optional extra. Yet, for so long, this government has sat idly by and let that be the case for young Australian workers.

We have seen recently, at the Labor Party conference, the passage of a resolution calling on the government, and adopted by the party, to fix this problem. This is an urgent problem, and it is urgently needed that words are translated into action. We've heard contributions from MPs on the government side supportive of the idea. Words need to be put into action. The government needs to step up and take on these big corporations because they are ripping young workers off.

Very well pointed out, Senator Pocock. We have young workers in the gallery. There are folks right up there that may well be taking their first shift, or they're a couple of days or years away from doing that, for the first time. They should be paid their superannuation—same pay for same work. This is discrimination, and it's been allowed to go on for too long. It is not like these corporations can't afford it. Let me just remind everyone in here the profits of the big three in this space.

Coles, in the last financial year, what was their bottom line—$1.08 billion? I bet they were quite disappointed that it wasn't $1.1 billion flat. It must be a tough time for the folks at Coles, for the corporate leadership. It's hard operating a monopoly that parasitically extracts wealth from the Australian public because they have an ability, at the stroke of a pen, to jack up the price of cheese whenever they want to make a quick buck. Woolworths made $1.38 billion profit in the last financial year. You're telling me they couldn't pay their young workers super? This is greed. Maccas had a global profit last year exceeding $13 billion. These are the corporations allowed by the loopholes in the law to get away with not paying young people their super. Shame!

The Greens have a bill, right now, to fix this problem. Here's one we prepared earlier. I say to the government back the bill. Back the bill. Let's get this done. Let's get young workers the pay and the super they deserve. If there are some politicians on the fence about this, I would ask you to consider two things: firstly, that these massively profitable corporations are saying to Australian workers right now, 'Sorry, we're not going to pay you super,' and the government of the day is saying, 'Sorry, you don't qualify for compulsory super, so you've got to just kind of live at the whim of the employer.' Ask yourself if that seems fair to you.

I'd ask you how you would feel, as members of parliament, if there were reform to your superannuation entitlements that meant that you didn't get paid super unless you turned up and could demonstrate that you'd done more than 30 hours a week of actual parliamentary work. I reckon you'd be a bit salty about that. I reckon you'd think that was unfair. Yet that is the situation politics has allowed to exist, and government has allowed to continue for young workers in Australia.

I would also ask you to consider what it is actually like to work these jobs. It's hard work, disproportionately done by women. It's hard work in which not you're not only often on the front line of copping the frustration of many people with the corporate practice—the abuse at the till, the discriminatory comments. You're also then asked to do the hard, lonely work—the stacking of the shelves and the sweeping of the floors. If the air conditioner is broken or something has exploded somewhere and you've got to clean it up, you're the one asked to do that work. You do that work and you are, in some ways, relieved that you can do it because you can pay the bills, but that doesn't mean it isn't hard.

I was talking to an employee of Coles in WA just yesterday. He shared with me that they and their store understand very clearly why the cameras are installed in Coles nowadays. Overwhelmingly, they're not to look somebody nicking something or to generally keep an eye on people that might be buying things in the store. All the workers know the primary purpose, now, is to actually surveil the workers. There are really clear KPIs in place around how fast you've got to check things through the till, for instance—10 in a minute. If you do less than that, if the camera catches you even taking a breath, then you're pulled up. It builds this sense of anxiety of being watched constantly that is often the reason why people just cannot continue to take the work at these places anymore even though they really need the money. Many push through.

I think some in here think that, if you're under the age of 18 and working less than 30 hours a week, you must be doing an hour here and an hour there, just for a bit of pocket money. That's not the lived reality of so many young workers. They are doing hard work, wearing the same uniform—often doing even the same tasks or harder tasks than those over the age of 18—because the boss thinks they can get away with giving the hard stuff to the younger worker. Yet they're not paid the same superannuation.

I will comment and point out that still, in Australia, they're not paid the same wage either. We still have different wages in this country based on your age. The Greens want to see them eliminated. There's some work happening now to bring the minimum wage to those working in some industries from the age of 18, but we've got to wipe out age based discrimination in pay. It's just not acceptable. The government has a role to play here. The politics comes in because it is the Labor government who have decided to allow the loophole in the law to remain. The loophole must be closed. Young workers deserve the same fair pay and the same fair super.

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Fair Super for Young Workers) Bill 2026. Can I start at the outset by saying thank you very much to the Greens political party for introducing this bill. I do think it is an important issue that's worth discussing, and the coalition would like to, at first, put on the record that Australians should always be paid the wages and entitlements that they are owed. That includes young people. Young people should have every opportunity to be paid their entitlements, and they should also have the opportunity to get their foot in the door of the workplace in the first place.

My concern with this bill is that the intention is very good, but, if you legislate an entitlement, you might also inadvertently at the same time take away an opportunity. I do think this is worth fleshing out, though, and I would hope that the Greens political party will take this bill to a committee so that it can be fleshed out in more detail. The coalition believes that our superannuation system needs to be flexible, it needs to be fair, it needs to be transparent and, it needs to be worked out in the best interests of all Australians.

When I was minister for superannuation, one of the most important reforms that we delivered was abolishing the $450 monthly threshold. We did that with the support of the Greens, for which I was very grateful. That excluded many low-paid workers from compulsory superannuation. I want to point out what that $450 threshold was because I think it's such an arbitrary number. People don't really understand it. If you were paid less than $450 a month, your employer didn't have to pay you superannuation. It had been part of the superannuation system since the year dot—since, as Labor like to say, when they invented superannuation.

They put that in as a deliberate design feature of the superannuation system. They said, 'If you are a low-paid earner, you don't have to be paid superannuation.' They did that because they understood that small businesses in particular that had people on a casual employment basis—maybe had somebody one day a week—were going to find the complexity of paying superannuation for those low-paid workers so onerous that they wouldn't employ them in the first place. That's why it was there. Unfortunately, it sat there as part of the superannuation system for years and years, overlooked by Labor when they were in government. It took a coalition government to overturn that rule, to make sure that low-paid workers were paid the appropriate level of superannuation. That wasn't a small deal, and we fleshed that one out at committee. The reason why we fleshed it out at committee was that small businesses were rightly concerned—still concerned—that even that small change was going to push them to the brink. It didn't, and I'm very pleased and very proud of that reform. It's something that I hang my hat on. That experience taught me that when we change the rules around superannuation we need to be mindful of what the consequences might be. This is not a dissimilar reform and why we need to carefully consider the bill.

On the face of it, I agree the proposition sounds perfectly fair and reasonable. Under the Australian law at the moment, if someone is under the age of 18 and works more than 30 hours, they do receive superannuation. But, if they work fewer than 30 hours, they don't. The employer can decide whether to pay it or not. There are some very real questions about what that means in practice. Most young people under the age of 18 are paid an award. When you require an employer to pay superannuation on top of an award, that's an additional cost to the business. For large businesses, perhaps that might be manageable, and I know that Senator Steele-John mentioned some of those large businesses. But, for a small business, that can be quite an imposition. When you employ a 16-year-old or a 17-year-old in their first job, you're taking a risk. You might not be necessarily getting your value for money for those wages for many years, but you are investing in their future. So there are swings and roundabouts.

We don't want to make it harder for businesses to employ young people and to give them their first chance, their first foot in the door. We want more young people to actually have a job. Youth unemployment is now double the national unemployment rate. It's now 10.7 per cent. When Labor came to office, youth unemployment was 8.8 per cent, so it is growing at a much more rapid rate. There are now 73,000 more young people unemployed than when the coalition left office in 2022. I think that that's something that should concern all of us.

For many young Australians, their first casual job isn't about the pay packet. Of course, it makes you proud when you receive that first pay packet, and I think we can all remember it, but it is also about getting experience. It's about taking on responsibility. It's about learning to turn up on time, work in a team, deal with customers and take responsibility. It's about getting that first reference on your resume, and, importantly, it's about that first step in your career. So, when we legislate in this area, I think it's really important that we think about the incentives and disincentives that we create for employers to take on that young person. We don't want a situation where a small-business owner or a small-business manager says, 'I'd love to give this person a few shifts, but I simply can't afford that additional cost.' I think that would be a tragedy. We need to make sure that young people who want to work can actually get that job.

Let me be very clear. The coalition will always support young Australians getting the wages and the conditions that they are entitled to. That is a priority. Make no mistake. I might add that Labor talk an awful lot about super. They talk about the fact that they own super. But what they don't talk about is the fact that superannuation belongs to the individual. It doesn't belong to them. The coalition has a very strong track record on making superannuation fairer and making sure it works for the individual—not working for government, not working for unions, not working for fund managers but working for you, the person that is putting their money away, whose deferred wages it is.

When in government, we made super more flexible. We allowed Australians to catch up on the superannuation contributions that they might not have used, giving people greater control over their retirement savings. That catch-up contribution was a really important reform, particularly for women, who may have missed out on the opportunity to contribute to super when they've taken time away from the workforce. But, once they get back in, they have an opportunity to give in more, taxed effectively, helping their retirement savings and their balance at the end of their careers—a very important reform. That is a coalition legacy.

We also made it fairer. We protected low-balance accounts from unnecessary fees and ensured that young Australians in particular weren't automatically paying for insurance that they didn't need. Making sure that low-balance accounts were fee free was a really important reform, particularly for young people, because you need that critical mass in your superannuation, without it being eaten up by fees, to get the effects of compounding. It was only a coalition government that made that happen. In fact, before we came to government, young people were seeing their superannuation eaten up entirely, to the point where they couldn't even get past a zero balance. You'd have a job when you were a young person, maybe stacking shelves in a supermarket, then you'd finish school and go overseas, and, by the time you'd come back to start your career again or go into another job, there would be nothing left in your superannuation, even though you'd been putting money away. That was disgraceful, but that was a deliberate design feature of the system that's gone now, thanks to the coalition.

We also made sure that young people weren't having their balances eaten up by insurance premiums on assurances that they didn't need, that they never claimed on and that were cross-subsidising the claims of older Australians. We made sure that insurance on superannuation was opt in rather than opt out for people under 25, which was a really important reform for young people. We also gave Australians choice. You should never be told what superannuation fund you have to be in by your employer, but, again, that was the system that was invented by Labor. It was the legacy that we inherited, but we changed it. From now on, no longer can your employer or your union tell you what superannuation fund you have to invest in. That's outrageous. If you're going to mandatorily put away and defer 12 per cent of everything you earn, how dare somebody else tell you where you must invest, but that was Labor's legacy in superannuation. The coalition abandoned that.

We also made sure that you couldn't have multiple accounts. This was the ultimate dirty little secret of superannuation funds. Many of them, some of the bigger funds, actually had multiple accounts within their own fund for the same member—two sets of fees and two sets of insurances. No wonder people's retirement savings weren't growing at a pace fast enough. We in the coalition got rid of that as well. We made sure that you only had one account.

We made super much fairer through 'protecting your superannuation' reforms. Low-balance accounts—we made sure you couldn't be charged fees for switching funds. Again, that was another dirty little secret of the superannuation industry. When you changed from one fund to another, they clipped the ticket on the way through. No, that's entirely unfair.

If you're a young Australian, you have a small superannuation balance. Every dollar matters, and the coalition has the track record to demonstrate that we have been the only party that has protected your rights in superannuation—lower fees, no switching fees and making sure that you're not paying for insurances that you don't need. That's the legacy of the coalition in superannuation.

Most importantly, we also gave Australians better control over their financial future. We allowed a maximum number of members in self-managed super funds to increase from four to six. That means that self-managed super funds—people who want to control their own superannuation—have the opportunity to look after their entire family in a superannuation fund. Again, it's all about fairness and it's all about choice. It's also all about efficiency, though, because it's your money and it's your retirement.

We also took action to make sure that Australians received the superannuation that was owed. The penalties on superannuation that wasn't paid were so high we found that many employers were holding back and not paying, even when they inadvertently realised that they had messed something up. The employment system is complicated. Superannuation is complicated. They go, 'Whoops, I might have underpaid an employee.' They held back because they were so frightened of the penalties. We gave them a one-year amnesty which put thousands of dollars into people's superannuation accounts. If people intentionally withhold superannuation, throw the book at them, I agree, but, if it's inadvertent because our employment system is so complicated and if the penalties are too high, you will simply encourage bad behaviour, and that means less money at the end of the day in people's superannuation funds.

We also stopped duplicate accounts. I told you that dirty little secret of superannuation funds, but there was another thing that, I think, was really important, and that is stapling—having your fund move with you from employer to employer, rather than opening up a whole new fund every time you started a new job. Again, a dirty little secret of the superannuation industry that is no longer. Now you are stapled—it's very bad word, isn't it—to one fund, or one fund is stapled to you. When you change jobs, your new employer has an obligation to look and see what superannuation fund you already have rather than open up a new fund on your behalf, which is so much more efficient.

I'll tell you the reform that I'm most proud of. Actually, there are two. It was a performance test—making sure that those underperforming superannuation funds had to tell their members that they'd underperformed, and, if they'd underperformed two years in a row, then they weren't allowed to accept new members. We were holding those superannuation funds to account. The ones that were hiding under the radar, surviving on the fact that compulsory super means that they get more money in the door every single month. It's disgraceful.

Most of those superannuation funds have now merged with others or have exited the system. Thank goodness because Australians are richer for it. That was a very good reform. Labor want to weaken the performance test. Do not allow that to happen. We cannot go back to the dark days of superannuation where people sat in a fund that was underperforming. Most importantly, we have said that superannuation funds must act in the best financial interest of members—no more donations to political parties, no more advertising at football games that can't be justified as in the best financial interest of members. Every decision a superannuation fund makes must be in the best financial interest of members.

This is the legacy of a coalition government and its approach to superannuation. We want it to be fair, we want it to be flexible, but, most importantly, we want it to work for the member—not for the Labor Party, not for the unions and not for the fund managers but for the member. Labor want to talk about superannuation this week. I can understand that; they've had a terrible fortnight. It's a terrible fortnight for you guys. I can understand that, when you don't like what they're saying about you, you want to change the conversation, but I'm happy to take on this conversation because the coalition has a proud legacy in superannuation. We put the members first. We put the retirees first. We put young people first. We put their interests first.

Superannuation is not a national asset, as the Prime Minister said. It doesn't belong to him, it doesn't belong to the Treasurer, and it doesn't belong to the unions. It's not there for the Labor Party to use for whatever national priority it has on its agenda today. They're your retirement savings, and they should always be your retirement savings. Let me give you this guarantee: under a coalition government, we can guarantee that your superannuation will always work for you; it won't work for Labor. That's the coalition's superannuation guarantee.

Richard Dowling (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Superannuation Legislation Amendment (Fair Super for Young Workers) Bill 2026. I want to begin by acknowledging something important about this bill. There is a good idea at the heart of it. There is a legitimate question about whether a young Australian who works, earns a wage and contributes to their workplace should also be building superannuation from the very first stages of their working life.

It's an important question, and it's one that Labor takes seriously. In fact, only last month, at Labor's national conference, we carried a motion calling for superannuation payments for workers under 18 regardless of the number of hours that they work, so this should not be portrayed as a debate between people who care about retirement savings of young workers and people who do not.

The question before us today is whether this particular bill is a sound way of achieving that objective. Unfortunately, this bill does not achieve that objective without some unintended consequences. When you're dealing with something as important and as interconnected as Australia's superannuation system, it's really important to get the detail right, and Labor does understand that better than most.

We built compulsory superannuation in partnership with the union movement because we believed working Australians deserve the dignity and security of knowing that a lifetime of work would be rewarded with a more secure retirement, and we spent decades strengthening it. The superannuation guarantee has now reached 12 per cent. We've legislated the objective of superannuation. We are paying superannuation on government funded paid parental leave, we've legislated for payday super, and we've increased support through the low-income superannuation tax offset and better targeted concessions at very large balances.

Around 1.3 million Australians benefit from the changes to the low-income superannuation tax offset, including around 750,000 women and around 550,000 Australians under 30. We've legislated the survivors law, so that convicted child sexual abusers cannot simply use parts of the superannuation system to shield assets from compensation owed to victims-survivors, and we are working to strengthen the retirement phase so that Australians are supported not simply to accumulate superannuation but to use it effectively and confidently in retirement. That is a substantial reform agenda, but there is a theme running through those reforms. They have been considered. They have involved consultation. They have required engagement with workers, with unions, with employers, with super funds themselves, with regulators and with the people who actually have to make these systems work—because the superannuation system is too important to approach in any other way.

That brings me to young workers. Earlier this week, I had the privilege of co-chairing a financial capability roundtable here in Parliament House, and we brought together people from across the financial capability sector, people involved in education, regulation, consumer advocacy, financial services and the community sector. There were different views around the table, as you'd expect, but one thing came through very clearly: the earlier we can get young Australians thinking about their financial future, the better. Financial capability is not simply about teaching someone how to make a household budget when they turn 30. It's about building the knowledge, the confidence and the habits that allow people to make good financial decisions throughout their lives. And those habits are best started early. If we think about a 16-year-old getting their first job—it might be a weekend shift at a cafe in Hobart, stacking shelves after school in Launceston or working in a tourism business on Tasmania's east coast during summer—that first payslip is one of those very important occasions where a young person begins to understand the connection between work, income, tax and saving. It's an opportunity to start learning what superannuation is, to understand that money going into their super account belongs to them, to see that it is invested, to learn about compound returns and to understand why fees matter, why investment choices matter and why keeping track of your super matters. That is financial capability in practice, and there is an intergenerational element to this as well. Younger Australians are rightly asking questions about housing, the cost of living, their future tax burden and whether they will have the same opportunities as generations before them. And superannuation is part of that equation. The earlier a person begins accumulating retirement savings, the longer those savings have to grow.

So I do have considerable sympathy for the objective that this bill is pursuing. Where the government parts company with the Greens is on the legislation before us, because the bill does considerably more than simply remove the rule that currently applies to workers under 18 who work 30 hours or less a week. If it were all it did, this would be a much more straightforward debate, but it's not. As drafted, the amendments interact with the wider superannuation guarantee framework, and they risk creating uncertainty about the operation of exemptions and carve-outs which have existed for reasons entirely unrelated to the treatment of young workers. There are longstanding technical arrangements within the superannuation system, including arrangements connected with international social security agreements and other specific exemptions. The concern with this bill is that its drafting may affect the way some of those arrangements apply, where the employee happens to be under 18. That is clearly not the stated purpose of the bill, and I don't believe that is what the bill is seeking to achieve, but legislation has to be judged not just by intentions but by what its consequences are. It has to be judged by the words on the page and what they actually do. If we end up with exemptions operating one way for a 19-year-old worker but potentially operating differently for a 17-year-old worker in otherwise identical circumstances, we have actually not simplified the superannuation system. We've made it complex, we've made it more complicated, we've created uncertainty for employers, we've created uncertainty for the funds and for the regulators, and, most importantly, we've created uncertainty for the very workers this bill would be intended to help.

There's another element to this. The bill restricts the capacity for future regulations to provide exclusions applying to workers under 18. Again, that extends considerably beyond the straightforward policy proposition that young people should generally receive superannuation on their wages. There may ultimately be a strong case for reforming the treatment of under-18 workers, and Labor's own national conference recognised that case, but that makes it more important that we get the reform right. We should understand how the change interacts with the entire superannuation guarantee framework. We should understand what that means for international arrangements, for payroll systems and for small employers and the consequential amendments that may be required. We should make sure that the young worker who is meant to benefit actually receives a simpler and more reliable entitlement at the end of it. That is what responsible reform looks like.

There is also a practical question of timing. Payday super commenced on 1 July this year, and it represents a major change to the way employers meet their superannuation obligations. It moves the system from quarterly payments to contributions being made alongside wages. Employers, payroll providers, superannuation funds and regulators are undertaking substantial implementation work around this. That does not mean we stop reforming superannuation—far from it.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing orders, the debate is interrupted. Pursuant to order, we shall now move to government legislation.