Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Bill 2025, Superannuation Guarantee Charge Amendment Bill 2025

Mr CONAGHAN (Cowper) (17:21): I am pleased to rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Bill 2025. Before I do, I want to say that it was disappointing to hear the member for Boothby say that those on this side hate superannuation. Through you, Deputy Speaker Georganas, I'd like to offer her a personal invitation to join the Parliamentary Friends of Superannuation, which I established only in recent weeks with two of our senator colleagues.

I would love for you to come along because we are intent on working together to ensure that Australian people get the superannuation that they deserve in the future. Since taking the role of shadow Assistant Treasurer and also shadow minister for financial services, I have worked side by side with the peak bodies from the superannuation sector to give them the confidence that the opposition is listening to them.

I have also been working side by side with my opposite, Minister Mulino, the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services. It is so important for the sector to have that confidence and the faith that government and opposition are working together because, when that confidence is there, the sector works well. And, if the sector works well, the system works well.

Then you will see superannuation doing what it is supposed to do, which is prepare older people for retirement and for them to be comfortable in the future. I think, when we're having these debates and when we're speaking outside of this chamber, we should be cognisant of the fact that throwing rocks at each other about superannuation and making statements that one or the other political party hates superannuation does nothing.

The Parliamentary Friends of Superannuation doesn't just have members from the coalition and members from Labor; it also has members from the crossbench and members from the Greens. I think that shows that there is that bipartisan approach that is required to ensure future security for the Australian people. I just thought I'd make that point.

Let me say that there is absolutely no disagreement. The coalition supports payday super. Superannuation is part of a worker's pay.

It's not a bonus, it's not a gift, and it's not a privilege. Superannuation is your money. It's not government money.

And the coalition will always stand up for that principle. We'll stand up for Australians to get every single dollar they've earned, and we believe that to our core. Unpaid superannuation is a real problem.

We acknowledge that. About $5 billion a year goes unpaid to workers who get up every morning or do shift work at night-time. It is not only unfair; it is illegal.

And we have to stop that. Whether it's the truck driver in Kempsey or the retail worker in Port Macquarie, workers trust what is on their payslip, and they should be able to trust the amount that is going into their superannuation account. Many of us have young children who are going into the workforce.

I have no doubt that every one of us wants our children to get every single dollar that they deserve, that they've earned, to ensure that, at the end of their working life, they have a comfortable retirement, because it is their money. In principle, we agree with most of this bill. We will see a change in the current system where businesses pay superannuation quarterly and the transition houses are able to hold onto that money for a period of up to 28 days.

This bill seeks to change it to a payday system. If you're paid weekly, fortnightly or monthly, your superannuation comes out on that day and goes through the transition houses for a period of only seven days. That means the money hits your account earlier.

It can't be used and abused for lengthy periods of time by other organisations. The intention is right. However, the rollout is wrong.

Labor has bungled the rollout, and unfortunately that is a familiar story with rollouts by the other side. They're brilliant at the big announcement but hopeless on the delivery. We saw recently the botched super tax on unrealised gains.

I stood at this very dispatch box. The Prime Minister sat opposite me and the Treasurer was sitting on the front bench, and I begged them. I explained to them how the unrealised capital gains would kill farmers, would kill businesses who put commercial properties into their self-managed super funds because they were (a) advised to and (b) allowed to under the current rules, but the goalposts were being changed.

So it was very pleasing, very refreshing, to see that backflip, whether it was from the Prime Minister or whether it was from backbenchers whose constituents had come out and said to them: 'You can't do this to us. This will hurt us. This will mean I'll have to sell off part of my farm because it's been a tough year because of fires or floods, but my property still increased in value, and now I have to find $125,000 or $150,000'—or whatever the 30 per cent component was—'and it will kill us.' The major issue with this bill is that it is being rushed out in a reckless, half-baked manner.

You need only look at the government's own explanatory memorandum, where, in black and white, it admits that the plan was for an 18-month rollout, not an eight-month rollout. There were very good reasons for this. Labor knows that payroll software providers need at least 18 months, that accountants need at least 18 months and that small businesses need at least 18 months.

Instead, they're giving businesses barely eight months—not from when the bill passes but from the day it was introduced. That is not a fair transition; that is a scramble. It's unfair, it's unrealistic and it's irresponsible.

I don't know how many members across the floor have run their own business. I have. I had a business for 18 years.

I know what it is like to be sitting there at three o'clock in the morning paying the wages, paying the super and questioning whether you're actually going to be able to pay yourself at the end of the day. I know what it's like to be a small-business owner. You are the owner, you're a counsellor to your staff, you're the janitor, you do the compliance and you pay the bills.

It's tough. Imagine putting this layer on top of business owners right now, particularly small-business owners who don't have an HR department. They don't have managers and they don't have in-house bookkeepers.

This is going to be extremely difficult for a small business, whether it's in Cowper or Gippsland or Campbelltown. I know what it's going to be like and I know how much of a headache this will be. They just want a fair go.

They want clear rules, realistic timeframes and a government that understands the pressure they face. If members in this place haven't been in business before, they should go and sit down with half a dozen business owners and talk to them about what this is going to do to them with a rollout of eight months. Again, it has to happen.

It has to happen because employees deserve to have their superannuation. But give the employers time to get to that point. I'll never defend an employer who doesn't pay superannuation.

It happened to me personally when I was younger, and it is unfair. They use that power over you: 'I'm your employer. You'll have to go and find another job.' Sometimes it's too hard to go and find another job.

Particularly in today's society, it is hard, depending on where you live. It's not going to be the big end of town that pays the price. It's going to be the cafe, the family-run mechanic, the local builder, the hairdresser—you name it.

They're all struggling with high energy prices, insurance costs going through the roof and staff shortages, and now they're being told to change their systems within eight months. Bizarrely, at the same time, Labor has decided to shut down the Small Business Superannuation Clearing House service. For those who aren't aware of what that is, it's a free service that provides around 200,000 of the smallest businesses with super-clearing services.

At the point where the employer pays to the super clearers, the super clearers then transition that money over to the superannuation account. It's being shut down at the same time—the very same date—that this is supposed to roll out, at the same time as MYOB, Xero and other clearing houses or platforms are saying, 'We're not going to be ready.' It is going to be a mess.

This design has not been thought through carefully. There has been plenty of time—in fact, years—for Labor to get this right. I would call on them to consider actually doing the right thing, to consider those small and medium businesses and to consider what it will actually do.

It would mean that 97 per cent of businesses would have time to prepare for the change but that only 28 per cent of employees are not covered from 1 July 2026. That's less than a third. That's fair, balanced and achievable.

You can actually do that. If you don't, there will be job losses and business closures. For those who say 'Well, if you're on that fine a margin, maybe you shouldn't be in business,' there are a lot of businesses out there—people who own businesses and employ people—that use that simply as a job, to get a salary and to pay themselves a wage, not to be extravagant.

There are plenty of businesses who have difficulties with cash flow but continue on. They continue on for years and years. To drop this on them in eight months will not give them enough time to address that.

It will be hard, it will be crushing and there will be job losses. In closing, I've spoken to many small businesses about this bill, and their biggest concern is the period of time. They want to keep the lights on.

They deserve a fair go. As a parliament, we are obliged to give them a fair go. They are the backbone of the Australian economy.

We should be thanking them for what they do to keep us afloat. In thanking them, we should listen to them and, by listening to them, we should extend the period of time for them to be able to comply with this bill.