MATTERS OF URGENCY
Senator PAYMAN (Western Australia—Australia's Voice Whip) (16:41): I move: That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency: The need for the Parliament to expand the criminalisation of wage theft to include the deliberate underpayment of superannuation and to guarantee that Australians aged under 18 are paid superannuation. This parliament has a habit of celebrating progress before the job is done.
We pass a reform, we hold a press conference, we declare victory, and then we wonder why Australians are still being left behind. We're doing it again with superannuation. This parliament rightly recognised that unpaid super is a serious problem.
That is why payday super was introduced, requiring super contributions for eligible workers to reach their fund shortly after pay day. But we never asked the most basic question. Who actually gets guaranteed super in the first place?
We fixed one part of the system, while leaving a much bigger problem untouched. Superannuation is not a bonus, a gift or a favour from an employer. It is money a worker has already earned and set aside for retirement.
If someone takes a worker's wages, we call that theft. It is legislated as theft. So, when a workers super goes missing, it should be treated exactly the same way.
That's why I'm advocating for super theft to be investigated and prosecuted by the Fair Work Ombudsman, not brushed off as an administrative hiccup. Every dollar of unpaid super is a dollar stolen from someone's retirement, a dollar that cannot compound, a dollar that cannot grow and a dollar that could mean the difference between security and uncertainty in retirement.
The theft happens today, but the damage is felt decades later. There's an uncomfortable truth sitting right next to this one. Hundreds of thousands of young Australians are being denied guaranteed super before it can even be stolen.
Right now, workers under 18 only get guaranteed super once they clock more than 30 hours in a week. Think about who that actually is. It's the teenager stacking shelves after school.
It's the uni student serving coffee on the weekends. It's the young worker helping their family cover the rent. They show up.
They do the work. They pay tax on what they earn. Yet the law decides that they don't count when it comes to super.
The numbers are staggering. The Super Members Council estimates that around 530,000 under-18 workers will miss out on guaranteed super this financial year alone. That's a combined $411 million in contributions that they'll never see.
A typical teen working part-time for two years before turning 18 could lose around $2,500 in contributions now, which compounds into roughly $11,000 less at retirement. It's gone before they can even cast a vote. We tell young people to be financially responsible, to plan ahead and to start saving early.
Then, the very first time they enter the workforce, we take the opportunity away from them. That's not fairness and it's definitely not common sense. We talk a lot in this chamber about the gender super gap.
Maybe we should talk more about where it starts. Evidence presented to my office showed that young women are hit the hardest by this exclusion because they're more likely to work part-time hours that fall below the threshold. For too many women, the first gap in their retirement savings is not created at 40; it is created with their very first job.
This rule dates back to the creation of the modern super guarantee in 1992. At the time, contribution rates were lower and there were concerns that fees and insurance premiums could erode small balances. Those settings have changed.
Contribution rates have gone up and protections have been introduced. Yet this outdated exclusion hasn't moved an inch. We see the workforce has changed, the economy has changed and young Australians have changed, but the law has not.
That is exactly what's happening when governments govern through piecemeal reform. They fix the system, ignore the cause and celebrate the announcement, and they leave the worker behind. So my message today is very simple: workers do not need another announcement.
They need a superannuation system that works as intended—a system where super is paid on time, a system where stolen super is recovered and a system where every worker who earns a wage earns super too.