Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Superannuation Measures No. 1) Bill 2018 and on the amendment moved by the member for McMahon. As a member of this House who represents one of the oldest electorates in the country, an electorate with a demographic of many people over the age of 65, I know how important it is, for contributions towards superannuation, to ensure that there is a system put in place to look after Australian workers after they've stopped work and retired.

We on this side of the House, the Labor Party, are very proud to be the party that built Australia's modern superannuation system. We know that back in the eighties, working together with the unions and through the accord, the Hawke and Keating governments set about expanding the superannuation system. They transformed a system that had previously only served public servants and a small group of professionals in Australia. Public sector workers were about the only group of people that had superannuation and investments for their retirement, leaving the vast majority of blue-collar workers—factory workers, cleaners, people in low-paid jobs—without any superannuation or savings for their retirement. The transformed superannuation system ensured that millions of Australian workers could enjoy a comfortable standard of living after their working life in their retirement.

Through that accord with the Hawke and Keating governments back in the eighties, workers gave up wage increases in return for super contributions. What that means is that superannuation is not a gift from the employer or the government; it is part of a wage package. It is money that's put into a savings account for workers' retirement, for the work that they've done. Let's make that clear: superannuation is not a gift. It's not something extra on top of your pay. It's part of your pay that goes into a savings account for your retirement. This is the way that superannuation came to be in Australia. Now there are trillions of dollars in deferred wages and earnings that have built up through our super system that are being used for infrastructure and a whole range of other investments in Australia. So I'm very proud, as all the members on this side are, of Labor's commitment to superannuation, which has seen millions of older Australians retiring with an income far in excess of the value of the aged pension and maintaining a relatively high quality of life.

In government, we not only increased the superannuation; we made it easier for lost super accounts to be reunited with the account holder. Our record on this side of the House is in stark contrast to that of those opposite. We know that Labor created the superannuation guarantee and that, back then, the coalition opposition opposed it. We increased the super guarantee to nine per cent, and the coalition again opposed it. It provided super support to low-income earners, and again they sought to abolish it. We also increased the super guarantee from nine per cent to 12 per cent when we were in government. Again, the coalition opposed it, with the increase to 12 per cent being pushed out to at least 2025, meaning workers in Australia lost thousands of dollars.

Those members opposite, and this government in particular, have always been ideologically opposed to superannuation, particularly industry super, because it was hard fought for by the unions. They oppose it on an ideological basis, not from some sort of logic, which is very wrong. They oppose it because it was hard fought for by the unions and won by the labour movement in this nation. We know that they oppose industry funds, despite reports that have found that a lot of the industry funds, which have people from unions and businesses as well as independents on their boards, dramatically outperform the retail funds. Every year we look at the results of superannuation companies, and we find that industry funds are continually outperforming the retail funds. Even with those records, which provide a stark contrast, this government opposes industry funds.

I, like other members on this side of the House, am also concerned about wage theft. We heard the previous member speak about wage theft. Decent hardworking Australians deserve every dollar of their wages and their super. Let me remind you, as I said earlier, that superannuation is not a gift; it's part of your wages. Therefore, if an employer is not paying the contributions into your super fund, it is wage theft. There can be no doubt that deliberately underpaying the wages and superannuation of hardworking people is nothing less than theft.

We've heard countless examples in recent years of franchises, cafes, restaurants—all sorts of industries—underpaying workers on a grand scale. Usually, it is young people and newly arrived migrants—people who perhaps aren't 100 per cent sure of the system. Basically, a lot of these unscrupulous, dodgy bosses consider it to be their own gift to be paid when they feel like it. This is wrong. It's part of a worker's wages. As I said, young and new Australians in particular have been exploited and targeted, and, at its worst, this is disgraceful behaviour and should have no place in our society.

The minister outlined in her second reading contribution that, according to the Australian tax office, around $2.85 billion in super went unpaid in the year of 2014-15. That's $2.85 billion. We call it super but in fact it's wages. People worked and were not paid; that's what it is. And, as I said, it's not a gift from the employer. It's not a gift from government; it's not something extra on top of your wages; it is part of your wages. That's $2.85 billion that was stolen from the pockets of hardworking Australians.

Over the 25 years since the superannuation charge was introduced under the Keating government, that underpayment of super by dodgy bosses is tens of billions of dollars. And it is tens of billions of dollars of additional pressure that has unnecessarily been put on taxpayers and the pension system by bosses who decide, for whatever reason, to line their pockets or just don't feel like paying it. That's the only reason. What that means is that each and every one of us is paying for it. It is theft from every Australian in this nation, because, if the worker's superannuation is not at a level where they can live comfortably, then they will go on the age pension, and we pay for that through our taxes. So, when they don't pay that superannuation, it's not just theft from that particular worker; it's actually thieving from the pockets of every Australian in this nation.

The minister talks about giving the Australian tax office tools that they need. But we know that this government continues to make it harder for regulators such as the ATO to go after those who rip off hardworking Australians. We know they've cut thousands of jobs from the Public Service and thousands of jobs from the ATO since they came to office in 2013. They've cut $26 million from ASIC at a time when, through the royal commission that's currently being conducted, we've seen rip-offs and rorts. Those opposite had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the calling of that particular royal commission.

They have frozen funding for the Fair Work Ombudsman in the budget that was announced a few weeks ago. The Fair Work Ombudsman is the government body that workers can turn to when they've got nowhere else to seek help, and they've frozen the funding to it. They've cut and outsourced Centrelink support staff and they've overseen cuts to penalty rates. We saw that the commission made a finding to cut penalty rates. We had a bill in this place that they could have supported to overturn that, but they didn't, therefore contributing to penalty rate cuts for some of the most vulnerable and lowest-paid workers in this nation.

When I hear those opposite talking about supporting workers, it reminds me of the time when a former Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, said, 'Working families in Australia have never been better off.' That was at the same time that he was introducing Work Choices, which saw thousands of dollars being ripped out of workers' wages through AWAs. Give us a break when they say these things!

This bill also proposes another nasty. It gives a 12-month amnesty for the nonpayment of super, and it goes back all the way to 1992. It is an amnesty for stealing money out of workers' pockets since 1992. Most people would go to jail if they stole money from someone else—and this is going to go all the way back to the nineties, and it could be worth three to 10 times more if you add interest on the money that's owed to these people. So not only do dodgy bosses get an amnesty from penalties; they get a tax deduction as well on top of it. What a joke! And look at how they treat others. It should be a criminal offence. Here in Australia, we're not asking for much. We're asking for a decent wage for a decent day's work. That's always been the motto in this country, and we're starting to see it go down the gurgler.

Why don't the government give an amnesty to Centrelink recipients who perhaps have put in some wrong documentation or have been given wrong information, as has been the case at Centrelink? Give them an amnesty. These people are experiencing very hard times. You don't go to Centrelink because you've got money coming out of your ears; you go to Centrelink because you are having a hard time. Sometimes mistakes are made. Sometimes Centrelink makes mistakes and then Centrelink demands that you pay back a debt. But there is no amnesty for those people. All you have to do is look at the robo-debt debacle last year, where over 20,000 people—mainly pensioners—were sent notices from Centrelink demanding that they pay overdue debts when there was no overdue debt. Investigations through the minister's office found that 20,000 were sent notices and those notices were wrong. They didn't give those people an amnesty—and many did pay, even though they shouldn't have had to. This government set about trying to enforce debts through that Centrelink system when in fact those debts simply did not exist. The government finally admitted that, last year, 20,000 people were wrongly given notices and told they owed money to Centrelink—something we on this side helped to expose.

You can see the stark difference with this government. When it comes to supporting workers or low-income people in this nation, they have absolutely no interest. On the one hand, they come down with the hard hand of the law when it comes to Centrelink recipients and, on the other hand, they give an amnesty of 25 years to people who have stolen money from other Australians.

The minister talks about this being a mechanism for small and medium businesses to come forward and make good—that's the argument put forward for this amnesty—but it doesn't appear that this amnesty is limited to small and medium businesses. This will also cover many multinational companies that have done the wrong thing and it will cover many big businesses and big companies that pay no tax in Australia—companies that have set up their shelf companies overseas, pay no tax and also rip money off workers. The government are going to give them an amnesty as well. When the minister says that this is a mechanism for small and medium businesses, she doesn't tell us that the big businesses that have all the accountants in place, and most probably know that they are doing the wrong thing, will get an amnesty.

Only weeks ago we saw that ISS Facility Services Australia—part of the multinational ISS Group—was issued with a penalty of $132,217 by the Federal Court for underpayment of wages. ISS employ 13,000 staff across Australia. It's not exactly a small business or medium business. A penalty of $132,000 for a company like that is peanuts. Research by Industry Super Australia found that around 2.76 million, or almost one-third of Australian workers, eligible for super are missing out on some or all of their entitlements. That is a massive amount. This is theft on a large scale, not bits and pieces happening occasionally here and there; this is 2.76 million Australians who are owed money or have not had money put into their super funds.

It sickens me and all of us on this side of the House that some dodgy bosses out there have been getting a competitive advantage over good bosses—the majority who do the right thing—and now they are going to get an amnesty. This affects law-abiding businesses that are doing the right thing, as the ones who are underpaying are the ones who are going to benefit out of this. I believe that we are better than this, and that's why I'll be supporting the amendment moved by Labor.

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