Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Treasury Laws Amendment (Improving Accountability and Member Outcomes in Superannuation Measures No. 2) Bill 2017. The two measures contained in this bill reflect provisions in my own earlier private member's bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Recovering Unpaid Superannuation) Bill 2017. The salary sacrifice integrity provision in this bill relates to item 5 from my own bill and closes a loophole that allows unscrupulous employers to claim an employee's salary sacrifice contributions as employer contributions. This is a pernicious loophole and closing it has long been overdue.

The second provision in this bill, choice of fund for workplace determinations and enterprise agreements, relates to item 7 of my private member's bill and returns the power to the individual employee to determine which super fund they wish to join rather than, through an enterprise agreement, forcing them into a fund they may not wish to join. This does not mean that default funds cannot still be recommended for those people whose knowledge of superannuation is limited, but it places the power to opt out back in the hands of the employee, and I believe that's the right place for it to be.

I would add that I do not believe the measure goes far enough, and that I cannot see why employees who are paid under some awards cannot be allowed to choose, if they so wish, a fund other than the default recommended fund. However, although the Nick Xenophon Team supports this bill, it does not go far enough. Although the vast majority of employers do the right thing, I have spoken at length in this parliament about the systemic problems of underpayment of superannuation by those few unscrupulous employers who are dudding their employees of their superannuation entitlements and dudding the Australian taxpayer because retirees must rely more heavily on the public purse and pensions to make up for their lost superannuation.

As I have also stated before in this parliament, the current process for recovering unpaid superannuation by the Australian Taxation Office is weak and ineffective. Too many of my constituents have waited for years for the Australian Taxation Office to act, but they have waited in vain—all whilst it is business as usual for some unscrupulous employers. This is just not good enough. I call upon the government to provide employees with a right of action to recover their own superannuation instead of forcing employees to rely upon the ATO to recover what is, after all, their own money and not the tax office's money. I also encourage the government to consider closely the other provisions in my private members' bill, which they have yet to adopt into parliament as parts of their own superannuation bill, all of which seek to improve the payment of superannuation to Australian workers.

In closing, I support this bill. I commend this bill, and I look forward to us in this parliament doing much more in providing employees with the protections they deserve under superannuation. Thank you.

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