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

Ms WITTY (Melbourne) (12:25): I rise to speak in support of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Bill 2025 and the Superannuation Guarantee Charge Amendment Bill 2025. This is a once-in-a-generation reform to fix a longstanding problem in our superannuation system: unpaid super. In 2021-22 alone, the Australian Taxation Office estimated that $5.2 billion in super went unpaid.

That is $100 million every single week. The workers earned but never received their super. It is money that should be building people's retirement savings so they can continue to look after themselves well into retirement.

But, too often, it disappears, especially when employers go bust or when payments are delayed for years. The current system allows employers to pay super quarterly, which can leave workers exposed and potentially not receiving their super at all. If an employer fails to pay, it can take years for that to be detected, by which time the money can be unrecoverable.

For a typical 35-year-old, missing two years of super contributions can reduce their retirement savings by $32,000 in today's money. If the employer goes under, that loss can be over $90,000. These losses fall hard on the youngest workers and people in insecure jobs—those who can least afford to miss out and those who are too scared or too shy to speak up.

At the start of my working life, I spent years working in retail, a job that I really enjoyed. I worked for one particular employer for about a year. I showed up, I did the work, and I enjoyed the job.

I folded clothes, smiled through unreasonable customer requests, hung clothes better than I did back at home and powered through those endless shifts where my feet screamed louder than the music playing overhead. But guess what I didn't get? My super.

Not once, zero, not at all. At first, as you would imagine, I thought maybe it was an admin error. Maybe it was coming late.

I kept my eye out and kept looking for it, but it didn't show up. You know how it is. You give them the benefit of the doubt, but, after a while, it becomes clear it was less of an 'oops' and more of an, 'Oops, we hope she didn't notice!' I did notice, but it took me many years to chase down that money.

It took phone calls, emails and a decent portion of my soul. When I finally got it, it was like receiving a gift that had my name on it the whole time—just covered in dust and excuses. But a gift is not what it was; it was money that was owed to me and should have been given to me immediately.

Let's not even talk about the interest I should have received and for which I was deeply out of pocket. But here's the thing, and it still really gets me: at the time, I was very young—too young to even think about retirement. Retail is built on an industry backed by young girls, school kids, uni students and first jobs.

Let's be honest—most of us were too scared, too unsure or too polite to ask the big questions, like, 'Where's my super?' or, more importantly, 'Where's my money?' Quite often, we weren't even thinking about it, because it seemed to be too far into the future. This legislation will change this unfairness. From 1 July 2026 employers will be required to pay super at the same time as wages, not quarterly.

That's when it was earned. Contributions must reach the employee's fund within seven days of a payday. This will make it easier for workers to track their super and for the ATO to pick up missed payments in near-real time.

The bill also modernises the superannuation guarantee charge, which is the penalty framework for employers who don't pay on time. It will apply to each payday missed, including compensation for lost investment earnings, and introduce stronger penalties for persistent noncompliance. These changes send a clear signal: if you owe your workers super, you have to pay it—and pay it on time.

It's their money, not yours. This reform builds on Labor's proud legacy in the early 1990s. A Labor government delivered compulsory superannuation, one of the most significant social and economic reforms in modern Australia.

It lifted millions of working people into more-secure retirement. Payday super is the next step in that story, making sure that what workers earn actually ends up in their super accounts when it should. Importantly, this reform supports employers, too.

Aligning super with payroll will reduce end-of-quarter admin pressure and help businesses avoid building up large liabilities. The ATO will take a facilitative approach in the first year, focusing on education and support, rather than penalties, for those making genuine efforts to comply. There is strong support from stakeholders.

Treasury held consultations with more than 200 organisations earlier this year. Business groups, unions and super funds all back the principle of aligning super with wages. We must act now to give employers, payroll providers, super funds and the ATO time to prepare for the 2026 start date.

Every month we delay is another month that workers miss out on their super, and those losses compound over a lifetime. Payday super is practical, fair and forward looking. It protects workers, modernises the system and strengthens the foundation of Australia's retirement savings.

It is another example of the Labor government delivering real reforms that make people's lives better. I commend the bill to the House.