MATTERS OF URGENCY

Senator BARBARA POCOCK (South Australia) (16:51): The Greens will always stand up for workers' wages and conditions. It's the most powerless who are most affected by wage theft, and stealing wages from workers, especially workers with low bargaining power—young people, migrants, women—causes serious harm. Evidence to a recent Senate inquiry into wage theft clearly showed that it continues to be a widespread, systemic and entrenched problem across Australian workplaces, and the Greens were proud to support the criminalisation of wage and superannuation theft during the closing loopholes reforms.

We need to make sure that our penalties for superannuation and wage theft are fit for purpose and that we increase the resources available to make sure that prevention and repayment are actually enforced. But I want to move on to the other issue covered by this motion: the need for this Labor government to guarantee that Australians aged under 18 are paid the superannuation that they would be entitled to if there were not discrimination on the basis of age.

I listened to Senator Ghosh tell us that Labor will get super for all under-18s. But all the young people out there watching this and thinking about super and wondering what they're going to have in their pay packet next fortnight will be asking Senator Ghosh: when are we going to see Labor actually do what we need here? Right now, hundreds of thousands of young Australians aged under 18 are missing out.

Every year, 530,000 young workers are denied the astonishing sum of $411 million in super for no reason other than their age. The Greens have pushed three times to try and get Labor to act and give those young people the super they should be getting. We took this policy to the last election, and last year we tried to amend the government's Treasury Laws Amendment (Payday Superannuation) Bill 2025 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—those very big supermarkets, Maccas and the fast food industry; those big giants profiting from billions every year. They sided with them over the young people and the $411 million they are owed in their super. Then, just this July, we pushed again to partially disallow this exclusion in regulations and deliver super for young people.

So, Senator Ghosh, I say to you and to the Labor Party: When are you going to deliver for young workers? When are you going to stop discriminating against them just because they're young and they work part time because they're at school? There are very good reasons why those workers work part time.

They are there every afternoon in their hundreds of thousands, and they deserve superannuation. I'm proud the Greens now have a private member's bill before this very Senate that would improve and change that outdated exclusion. We brought the bill forward because Australia's superannuation should apply to every worker.

It's time for young workers to be paid the super they deserve. I've referred this bill to an inquiry and I look forward to hearing from young workers about how this unfair exclusion hurts them. It hurts them every day.

It's time to stop boosting the profits of some of Australia's biggest and most profitable corporations by letting them continue to rip off young workers by taking money out of the pockets of those kids under 18 and putting it onto the bottom line of some of our most profitable big corporations. This parliament needs to support the Greens private member's bill and give superannuation to all workers under the age of 18, regardless of how many hours they work.

If you earn a wage, you should earn super. If you pay tax and turn up for your job as someone under 18, you should be paid your super. The Greens will continue to fight for those young workers.

We will push Labor. It's time Labor delivered for those young workers to remove those restrictions, to remove age discrimination and to pay those workers what they are entitled to. It's time to end that discrimination and shift that money, that $411 billion, from the bottom line of Coles, Woolies and Macca's into the pockets of those young people so they have a decent retirement when their time comes.