Victoria\u2019s workers are short-changed $1.22 billion a year from their super and the state\u2019s workers will continue to be ripped off until federal politicians act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Industry Super Australia (ISA) analysis of the latest tax data shows more than 760,000 Victorian workers lost an average of $1,606 in 2018-19 (see table 1). Those swindled on super can end up retiring with up to $60,000 less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In six years \u2013 from 2013-14 to 2018-19, Victoria\u2019s unpaid super bill climbed to an eyewatering $6.7 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite nearly a third of the state\u2019s workforce suffering a super rip off each year, awareness of the unpaid super problem remains chronically low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It can often take months for workers to uncover that they have been underpaid, making recovery far more difficult. Making matters worse 70% of workers don\u2019t realise super can legally be paid just four times a year, not with their wages \u2013 despite what it says on payslips. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The outdated laws and the lack of awareness amongst workers is being exploited by some unscrupulous employers to not pay super. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mandating that super is paid with wages will make it much easier for workers to track when payments are made and uncover underpayments quicker, making recovery more likely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An ISA report, <\/em>Super Scandalous how to fix the $5 billion scourge of unpaid super<\/u><\/em><\/a> and a community awareness campaign aims to help solve the problem that impacts three million people and provides practical tips on how to ensure workers are getting what they are owed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But individuals can only do so much, it is up to politicians to fix the systemic underpayment of super by mandating all employers pay super into a workers\u2019 account when they pay wages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unpaid super creates an unequal playing field for businesses, as the employers doing the right thing are undercut by competitors who are ripping their workers off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Workers must largely rely on the Australian Tax Office to recover their money as it is difficult to sue for super. But the ATO only recovers a dismal 12% of unpaid super annually and rarely issues penalties that would deter dodgy employers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the ATO is unwilling or unable to recover Victoria workers\u2019 savings the law should be changed so that employees, the Fair Work Ombudsman, and others acting on behalf of workers can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To fix Victoria’s $1.2 billion unpaid super scourge politicians should commit to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a>\u00d8 Mandating super payment at the same time as wages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00d8 Lift enforcement activity and force the ATO to issue and publicise penalties for not paying super \u2013 so dodgy employers can see there is a cop on the beat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00d8 Empower employees and representatives to recover unpaid super debts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00d8 Extend the Fair Entitlement Guarantee so workers can recoup their savings if a company goes bust \u2013 at the moment super is not included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Industry Super Australia Chief Executive Bernie Dean<\/strong> said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is a $1.2 billion a year rip off affecting nearly a third of Victoria\u2019s workers, yet many of them remain unaware, assuming super is being paid because it appears on their payslip.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSuper is your money, you should get it paid at the same time you get your wages. By not mandating the payment of super with wages, politicians are stopping Victorian workers getting what they are owed.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Our federal politicians get their super paid on payday, so should all Victorian workers.” <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Table 1: Unpaid super by Victorian federal electorate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Source: ISA analysis of 2018-19 2% ATO tax file and ABS data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Victoria\u2019s workers are short-changed $1.22 billion a year from their super and the state\u2019s workers will continue to be ripped off until federal politicians act. Industry Super Australia (ISA) analysis of the latest tax data shows more than 760,000 Victorian workers lost an average of $1,606 in 2018-19 (see table 1). Those swindled on super … Continue reading “Victorian workers suffer $1.2 billion super rip off\u00a0“<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14943,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14942\/revisions\/14943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Electorate<\/strong><\/td> Persons<\/strong><\/td> Percentage of electorate<\/strong><\/td> Average underpaid <\/strong><\/td> Total ($m)<\/strong><\/td><\/tr> Melbourne<\/strong><\/td> 23,800<\/td> 25%<\/td> $1,745<\/td> $41.5<\/td><\/tr> Macnamara<\/strong><\/td> 24,150<\/td> 28%<\/td> $1,538<\/td> $37.1<\/td><\/tr> Hotham<\/strong><\/td> 22,250<\/td> 30%<\/td> $1,649<\/td> $36.7<\/td><\/tr> Gellibrand<\/strong><\/td> 23,300<\/td> 31%<\/td> $1,573<\/td> $36.7<\/td><\/tr> Lalor<\/strong><\/td> 27,850<\/td> 34%<\/td> $1,293<\/td> $36.0<\/td><\/tr> Maribyrnong<\/strong><\/td> 21,600<\/td> 29%<\/td> $1,664<\/td> $35.9<\/td><\/tr> Holt<\/strong><\/td> 25,600<\/td> 33%<\/td> $1,398<\/td> $35.8<\/td><\/tr> Corangamite<\/strong><\/td> 21,050<\/td> 33%<\/td> $1,684<\/td> $35.5<\/td><\/tr> Casey<\/strong><\/td> 18,450<\/td> 29%<\/td> $1,905<\/td> $35.1<\/td><\/tr> La Trobe<\/strong><\/td> 22,550<\/td> 32%<\/td> $1,549<\/td> $34.9<\/td><\/tr> Gorton<\/strong><\/td> 21,750<\/td> 29%<\/td> $1,591<\/td> $34.6<\/td><\/tr> Chisholm<\/strong><\/td> 21,950<\/td> 29%<\/td> $1,561<\/td> $34.3<\/td><\/tr> Mcewen<\/strong><\/td> 20,700<\/td> 32%<\/td> $1,641<\/td> $34.0<\/td><\/tr> Dunkley<\/strong><\/td> 20,700<\/td> 32%<\/td> $1,635<\/td> $33.8<\/td><\/tr> Calwell<\/strong><\/td> 20,500<\/td> 30%<\/td> $1,578<\/td> $32.4<\/td><\/tr> Fraser<\/strong><\/td> 18,250<\/td> 27%<\/td> $1,750<\/td> $31.9<\/td><\/tr> Aston<\/strong><\/td> 19,950<\/td> 28%<\/td> $1,595<\/td> $31.8<\/td><\/tr> Bendigo<\/strong><\/td> 18,250<\/td> 31%<\/td> $1,727<\/td> $31.5<\/td><\/tr> Higgins<\/strong><\/td> 19,950<\/td> 26%<\/td> $1,577<\/td> $31.5<\/td><\/tr> Cooper<\/strong><\/td> 20,400<\/td> 29%<\/td> $1,542<\/td> $31.4<\/td><\/tr> Isaacs<\/strong><\/td> 19,800<\/td> 29%<\/td> $1,562<\/td> $30.9<\/td><\/tr> Monash<\/strong><\/td> 18,650<\/td> 31%<\/td> $1,639<\/td> $30.6<\/td><\/tr> Indi<\/strong><\/td> 17,450<\/td> 29%<\/td> $1,749<\/td> $30.5<\/td><\/tr> Mallee<\/strong><\/td> 17,950<\/td> 29%<\/td> $1,682<\/td> $30.2<\/td><\/tr> Kooyong<\/strong><\/td> 19,650<\/td> 27%<\/td> $1,535<\/td> $30.2<\/td><\/tr> Gippsland<\/strong><\/td> 16,300<\/td> 30%<\/td> $1,850<\/td> $30.1<\/td><\/tr> Goldstein<\/strong><\/td> 18,500<\/td> 27%<\/td> $1,619<\/td> $30.0<\/td><\/tr> Corio<\/strong><\/td> 19,150<\/td> 31%<\/td> $1,561<\/td> $29.9<\/td><\/tr> Bruce<\/strong><\/td> 19,650<\/td> 29%<\/td> $1,505<\/td> $29.6<\/td><\/tr> Scullin<\/strong><\/td> 19,150<\/td> 30%<\/td> $1,529<\/td> $29.3<\/td><\/tr> Flinders<\/strong><\/td> 17,300<\/td> 30%<\/td> $1,684<\/td> $29.1<\/td><\/tr> Ballarat<\/strong><\/td> 18,050<\/td> 28%<\/td> $1,588<\/td> $28.7<\/td><\/tr> Deakin<\/strong><\/td> 18,300<\/td> 27%<\/td> $1,556<\/td> $28.5<\/td><\/tr> Menzies<\/strong><\/td> 17,800<\/td> 28%<\/td> $1,588<\/td> $28.3<\/td><\/tr> Nicholls<\/strong><\/td> 17,550<\/td> 30%<\/td> $1,591<\/td> $27.9<\/td><\/tr> Jagajaga<\/strong><\/td> 16,650<\/td> 25%<\/td> $1,648<\/td> $27.4<\/td><\/tr> Wannon<\/strong><\/td> 17,100<\/td> 27%<\/td> $1,535<\/td> $26.3<\/td><\/tr> Wills<\/strong><\/td> 19,750<\/td> 27%<\/td> 1,684<\/td> $33.3<\/td><\/tr> State total<\/strong><\/td> 761,750<\/strong><\/td> 29%<\/strong><\/td> $1,606<\/strong><\/td> $1,223<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n