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

Mr WILLCOX (Dawson) (12:32): The coalition has always believed that superannuation isn't a gift; it's your pay—earnt and owed. Every dollar in a worker's super account is money they've already worked for, not a bonus, not a tip, not a token of appreciation; it's their money. Too often, they don't see it.

Each year around $5 billion in unpaid super slips through the cracks—billions not building retirement savings, not compounding for the future. So yes, the principle of payday super makes sense. When you're paid for your work, your super should follow close behind.

That's fair, that's logical and that's right. But Labor has taken a good idea and turned it into a logistical nightmare. We've seen this movie before: the headline first, homework later.

Labor races to the press conference, pats itself on the back and leaves small business to clean up the mess. From the botched backflipped super tax on unrealised capital gains to this half-baked payday super rollout, the pattern is the same: big talk, no plan. Even their own documents admit it.

Page 102 of the explanatory memorandum clearly outlines the plan: an 18-month transition between passage of the law and commencement. But that's not what small business is getting. Instead, Labor is giving them just eight months—and not eight months from when the law passes but eight months from the day the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Bill 2025 was introduced.

That's not ambition; that's arrogance. If we rush this reform, we won't be paying super more often; we'll be paying the price for poor planning. Let's be clear.

Labor delayed introducing this bill for a year and, in doing so, cut the transition time for business in half. After all that delay, now it's the bookkeepers, the family firms and the corner cafes who have to sprint to meet the deadline. Here's the kicker: not one member of Labor's cabinet has ever run a small business.

They wouldn't know payroll stress if it landed on the desk right in front of them, because anyone who ever ran a small business knows this. Every new regulation means a new software update, a new compliance burden and a new cashflow squeeze. Every hour spent doing that is an hour not actually spent running their own business.

We support the principle, but this isn't a minor tweak. It's a seismic shift in how Australian businesses handle their payroll. Right now, super is often paid quarterly, 28 days after the end of the quarter.

Under Labor's plan, it must be paid within seven business days of every pay run. That's a massive operational change. Even major software providers like MYOB have warned they won't be ready in time.

Yet, Labor barrels ahead regardless. This is a pattern. Labor makes the promise; small business pays the price.

For too many, this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Under Labor, small business has become the government's ATM—always paying more, always doing more and always getting less in return. It didn't have to be this way.

The coalition already showed them how to do it properly when we introduced the single-touch payroll. We rolled it out carefully and sensibly—big employers first, smaller ones later and microbusinesses given concessions. That's how you do reform without wreckage.

Single-touch payroll gave the ATO real-time visibility of wages and super. It's the very backbone that makes payday super possible. We built the system, but Labor's just trying to sprint it across before the paint is dry.

They're expecting your local fish-and-chip shop to implement the same payroll transition on the same timeline as a multinational with an army of accountants. It's absurd. That's why the coalition is calling for one simple, reasonable fix: give small businesses with fewer than 20 employees an extra 18 months, until 1 January 2028.

That covers 97 per cent of all businesses but only 28 per cent of employees. It's fair, it's balanced and it's achievable. We want this reform to succeed, not to sink under the weight of its own timeline.

Let's take a family owned cane farm outside of Proserpine, three generations on the land, employing seven locals between the fields and the shed. They pay their workers every fortnight but super quarterly, when the cashflow from the last harvest clears. Under these new rules, they'll have to send super within seven business days of every pay run, even if they're still waiting for the mill to pay them the cheque.

That's not financial discipline; that's financial pressure. When small businesses like this buckle so do the jobs and the communities that depend on them. I want to be clear: we support the principle that workers should receive their super as they're paid.

It's their money, earned and owed. But, if we want this reform to succeed for employees and employers, we must give small businesses the time and support they need to adapt, rather than setting them up to fail under impossible timelines. There's another issue.

We all agree that dodgy operators who deliberately withhold super should be caught and penalised. But what about the employers who generally try to comply and get caught out in circumstances beyond their control? If Optus goes down, if the bank delays a transfer or if the clearing house makes an error, should that employer be punished?

Of course not. Labor says the ATO will show leniency in the first year through a draft guideline. But that draft guidance isn't law.

It's a suggestion that can vanish overnight. That's why we're calling for a legislated safeguard—a requirement that, before penalties are applied, the ATO must consider whether a business made a good-faith effort to comply. I think that's very, very reasonable.

That's not a loophole; that is a fair go. While we're talking about fairness, let's not forget Labor's recent record on superannuation. This is the same government that created the biggest super backflip in decades with the superbad super tax.

If the Hon. Paul Keating was the architect of modern superannuation, then Treasurer Chalmers and Prime Minister Albanese were preparing to be the demolition crew. They wanted to tear up the rule book, taxing unrealised gains and undermining Australians' confidence in their own retirement savings.

They told Australians for decades that super builds wealth and that it's super stable, tax effective and worth investing in. Then they moved all the goalposts. Australians made long-term financial decisions in good faith, and Labor repaid that faith with uncertainty.

It's no wonder they were forced into a humiliating backflip. And now they're at it again with another rushed, ill-prepared policy that will hit the wrong people the hardest. We can't afford for payday super to become payday surrender.

Let's power it properly with fairness, foresight and time. Let's call this what it is. Labor wasted a year and cut the transition time in half, and now small business is footing the bill for their delay.

Meanwhile, we're staring down the barrel of a trillion dollars in debt. Labor's answer to every economic problem is the same: more red tape, more tax and more pain for the people who actually keep this country running. They're not fixing the system; they're plugging the holes with other people's money.

Here is where we stand. The coalition supports the intent of payday super. We support getting Australians every dollar they earn.

But what we also stand for is small and family businesses trying to keep their heads above water. We're calling for timely super payments for workers, including an 18-month extension for small businesses, restoring Labor's original timeline, a legislated safeguard for employers acting in good faith and a compliance focus on the dodgy, not the diligent. That's not an obstruction; that's responsible reform.

We want payday super to work in practice, not just sound good in theory. If Labor truly want to strengthen superannuation, they need to stop chasing headlines and start respecting the people who actually make this country work: the employers, the workers and the small-business owners who are powering Australia each and every day. This shouldn't be about payday panic.

It should be about payday progress. Let's get it right before we flip the switch.