Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to follow my colleague, the member for Hindmarsh, in speaking today on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Superannuation Measures No. 1) Bill 2018 and also the amendment moved by the member for McMahon. As you well know, Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, and as all of us on this side of the House realise, superannuation is very important. It is very important to us as the Labor Party and it is very important to the labour movement across this nation.

Labor created Australia's superannuation system and we will always work to defend it and the workers who benefit from having their employers pay into the system for their retirement. We believe in it. We really believe in superannuation. Let's remember that the Liberal and National parties opposed compulsory superannuation, just like they oppose every great social reform in this country. Each one of them voted against compulsory superannuation when it was introduced into this parliament. Ultimately, and luckily for this country, they lost that argument and the Keating Labor government legislated for compulsory superannuation to the greater benefit of workers in this country.

The bill includes a number of measures and they have been gone through in much detail by others. The most disappointing, upsetting and destructive measure we see in this bill is the so-called one-off 12-month superannuation guarantee amnesty. The government have put forward a measure that proposes a superannuation guarantee amnesty for employers who have done the wrong thing by their workers. The proposal the government have put forward for this supposed one-off 12-month superannuation amnesty will be given to employers who have not complied with their legal obligations to pay superannuation to employees. The idea, they have said in this place, is that this will encourage those employers who have not paid superannuation to their employees to now get their act together and do so. Employees will be 'encouraged' to meet their obligations and this will lead to employees being paid superannuation. Encouraged? Is this government really serious?

There is something fundamentally wrong with this way of thinking and this proposal. This government thinks proposing an amnesty will encourage employers to pay employees their hard earned superannuation, their actual wages. It feels ridiculous to have to point out in this place that the superannuation guarantee is the law. Employers have to pay it. There is no option. There is no need for encouragement. It is just the law. Employers have to pay their employees their proper wages. The proposal of this government does not address what is a despicable wrong. Superannuation is part of every worker's conditions of employment. It's not an option, just like workplace safety is no longer an option in workplaces around this country. Not paying employees super in the first place is nothing less than wage theft. It is wrong, it is immoral and it needs to be stamped out as the unacceptable practice that it is.

I'm always reluctant to bring matters of religion into this place but it is important to note that Pope Francis, an international leader of millions of people around the globe, has taken to task employers who do not pay employees what is legitimately owed to them. The Holy Father called the practice of wage theft a 'mortal sin'. I'm sure the millions of Australian workers who have been ripped off in this country feel exactly the same way. An employee's superannuation, once earned, does not belong to their employer; once earned, it belongs to the employee. Again, not paying the employee their super is theft pure and simple.

It is perplexing to think that dodgy employers are being given the chance by this government to get away with stealing from their employees. Industry Super Australia previously estimated that at least 2.4 million Australian workers were victims of stolen superannuation in one year alone. More than 2.4 million ordinary working people who went to work, who fulfilled their end of the work bargain, were then taken advantage of and had their money stolen from them by the dodgy employers who have engaged in wage theft.

I'm pretty sure we all know someone who has not had their super paid and has been trying to track it down. I know there are some young people in my family who have been ripped off by employers. They are often young people who work in cafes and the hospitality industry. They do change jobs—that is the nature of being young and moving around in that environment while you are studying. They are the people who have been attacked by greedy employers who literally fail to meet their obligations under the law.

Another way of looking at the problem is that a whopping 30 per cent of employees are missing out on their superannuation earnings. Industry Super Australia reported that about $5. 6 billion per year in unpaid super is missing from workers' retirement savings across this country. This is massive problem and it is equal to those workers losing $2,000 per year, which should be going into their retirement savings. There are long-term consequences for these workers and there are long-term consequences for the country.

Superannuation is one of the three pillars of retirement income in this country, alongside the aged pension and personal savings. By being robbed of their super, people have been robbed of the possibility of a comfortable retirement. Each time a worker has an amount of super stolen from them, they are missing out on the compounding interest returns on that amount. They have been robbed of a chance of self-reliance in retirement. What this means, of course, as my colleague the member for Hindmarsh pointed out earlier, is that this is putting added pressures onto the age pension system. Without the security of a funded superannuation pension, people will have to turn to the age pension to fund a retirement that might not offer the standard of living they could have otherwise reasonably expected. Future governments will have to fund additional age pension amounts because of the bad behaviour of some employers.

But why is it that this government feels the need to excuse this behaviour? Why is it that, instead of protecting the victims of this behaviour, the perpetrators are being given a tax break? Why are those employers and businesses who do the wrong thing not being held to account for their actions? If an employee were stealing from their employer, they would not be afforded an amnesty. No, they would, rightly, have to face the consequences of their crime. But here we have a government who is happily espousing one rule for badly behaving businesses and another rule for everybody else. Instead, this amendment will provide a 12-month amnesty for employers who have stolen superannuation and will give them incentives and tax deductions to encourage them to repay the stolen amounts.

The proposed new measures of this government will allow employers to claim tax deductions for payments of the superannuation guarantee charge or contributions made during the amnesty to offset the superannuation guarantee charge. In plain language, this means that dodgy employers will get a tax break for doing the wrong thing. Is there no end to the favours this rotten government will dish out to employers that break the law? We have not only a $17 billion tax break for the banks, which have regularly flouted the law, including enabling money laundering on an extraordinary scale, but also this super guarantee legislation, which will cancel the penalties and fees that would otherwise have applied for noncompliance.

All employers who have not paid super to their employees for 25 years are going to get a penalty holiday. In effect, those who have done the wrong thing will not get punished for their wrong actions and will be allowed to get off scot-free. The incentive for those employers and businesses who have done the right thing has become completely null and void. In this discussion we should consider the employers that do the right thing—and most employers do the right thing. Like most people in this country, business owners meet the right and proper obligations and responsibilities within the community and under the law. Not only is wage theft by not paying super bad for employees themselves; it is cheating other employers that obey the law. Cheats are getting themselves an unfair advantage over other employers and other businesses, and that is manifestly unfair and wrong.

It is not fair, but we know that fairness is not something that this government is particularly worried about, especially when it comes to the workers of this country. We've seen this in the government's refusal to protect the penalty rates of over 700,000 workers of the country, 10,000 of which live in my electorate of Brand, who, through no fault of their own, had their pay slashed when penalty rates were cut. Instead of sticking up for low-paid workers and instead of protecting their pay and conditions, this mean and tricky government has failed to protect workers and goes above and beyond to protect businesses doing the wrong thing. Let's not forget how long they protected the banks from the royal commission. Prime Minister Turnbull really can't help giving more and more to businesses—massive corporate tax handouts, slashed penalty rates and zero consequences for not paying workers' entitlements. What a shame that workers are not held in the same privileged esteem in which the Prime Minister holds big businesses.

As you've heard, this amnesty was announced without any consultation. It was not recommended by the Senate Economics References Committee's inquiry into superannuation guarantee nonpayment, and I would say that that's because the committee, full of quite intelligent people, did not think that it was a good idea. Nor was it recommended by the government's own Superannuation Guarantee Cross-Agency Working Group, and, again, I would say that that's probably because the group did not think that it was a good idea. The measure really has come completely out of left field. It's not mentioned in the budget and there are no recent parliamentary reports into unpaid super guarantee that have recommended this amnesty measure and the attached tax breaks. Only a government as out of touch as Malcolm Turnbull's government would reward dodgy businesses who have been robbing workers for 25 years. Such employers are crooks and they should be treated as such.

While we're on the matter, I reflect on the comments of the member for Hindmarsh, who pointed out the importance of industry super funds in Australia. Again, this government has no hesitation in attacking industry super funds and the superannuation of workers whenever it gets the chance. We should remind ourselves in this place that industry super funds are the best-performing super funds in the country. They produce the best results for workers, who pay their superannuation payments into super funds, and we should respect the management of those super funds and what they do for workers right across this country.

Instead, we are seeing constant attacks through various committees of this parliament; they use reviews of APRA and other entities to set up a position where they can hack into excellent institutions that have for decades provided the best results for working men and women who choose to join these super funds and get the best returns for their savings through superannuation which will provide better for them long into their retirement. It's a shame the government chooses not to work with these industry super funds and chooses instead to fight tooth and nail against sensible, well-managed super funds that deliver for the workers of Australia.

Instead of protecting the superannuation guarantee and following the pretty sensible notion of extending the amount that would go into the superannuation guarantee, this government of course chooses to attack it. It lets bad apples get off scot-free and get a tax incentive for not doing the right thing, for breaking the law. Saying it's a matter of encouragement is just absurd. When do any of us get the option to be encouraged to obey the law? It's not fair on other business that do the right thing. It's certainly not fair on employees—many of whom are women in low-paid non-permanent work—to not get paid their actual work entitlements which are captured by the superannuation guarantee.

I pay tribute to those in this place who have come before us, especially on this side—the Labor representatives who have fought hard to develop this important social policy of superannuation. They introduced it and fought against the Liberal and National parties, which resisted every step of the way superannuation for the benefit of workers' retirements in this country. Now they say they're into it; but then we see legislation like this, which gives law breakers a 25-year penalty holiday and a free pass to continue to break the law. What kind of encouragement is that, other than sending a message to dodgy employers around the country to just forget it? 'What do I care about the employees? I'm going to have an unfair advantage over other businesses. I'm not going to pay my workers their correct entitlement. They might come to work and do their work but I'm not going to hold up my end of the bargain and pay them properly.'

It's a crying shame that this is what this government stands for, but we see it time and time again in this House. I only hope they find their moral compass at some point in the future and start to think about the workers in their electorates that are being continually ripped off by big, small and medium enterprises that think it's a fair thing to be dodgy, to break the law and to not abide by the great social contract that we have in this country now, thanks to Labor, which is the superannuation savings which will serve workers well into their retirements. I thank the House.

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