The Treasury Laws Amendment (Recovering Unpaid Superannuation) Bill will extend a one-time amnesty to any employers who have failed to pay superannuation to their employers. The amnesty will expire six months after the day the bill receives Royal Assent.
“This policy is all about reuniting hardworking Australians with their super,” said assistant minister Jane Hume.
“We anticipate at least $160 million of super will be paid to Australian workers who would otherwise miss out. Since the one-off amnesty was originally announced back in 2018, over 7,000 employers have already come forward to voluntarily disclose historical unpaid super. We estimate an additional 7,000 employers will come forward in the next six months before the amnesty ends.”
To use the amnesty, employers must pay all unpaid super, including interest. And if employers don’t take advantage of it, they’ll face a minimum 100 per cent penalty on top of the super guarantee they owe, and up to 200 per cent for more serious cases.
But while industry bodies have welcomed minimum penalties, other parts of the bill came in for fierce criticism.
“That members will be reunited with their super is a good thing, but this [bill] does little to fix the causes of the $6 billion unpaid super scandal,” said Industry Super Australia (ISA) chief executive Bernie Dean.
“One in three Australian workers have been ripped off by a dodgy boss and with enforcement sadly lacking they do so without fear of punishment.”
The ISA estimates that the average worker loses $2,000 a year and wants to see mandated payday super to prevent payments falling through the cracks of a quarterly pay cycle.
“The chance to address unpaid super was now and because the government failed to act on important reforms 2.85 million Australians will continue to be ripped off,” Mr Dean said.
