Rewriting the Rule Book !

 The chairman of Australia's biggest retirement fund is critical of a group of Liberal members and Senators who stridently oppose lifting the compulsorily nine percent superannuation levy employers must pay into their employee's retirement account, to twelve percent.

We are struggling to return to near full employment as we emerge from a pandemic that not only killed a lot of people but also seriously disrupted the national economy when the isolation factor required us to shut shops and factories and put big numbers of people on government  recovery money.

Originally, superannuation was something that only applied to government employees and  and the key workers in many large industries and it was envisaged that both employer and employee would contribute to their own retirement plan.   The incentive was a well funded retirement which was better than living on the old age pension.

The government contended that the age pension would be untenable unless the numbers decreased and imposed a superannuation levy on all employers that was in addition to the wages or salary paid.  This only applied to permanent employees, and that was the start of replacing permanent employees with " casuals " who did not draw any form of holiday pay nor be included in this superannuation levy.  They were paid a higher hourly rate to compensate them for these losses.

Just as the pandemic recovery is gaining ground we are faced with a new trend.  Business is replacing permanent employees with people who claim they are " contractors " who are self employed and provide their services at rates competitive with one another, and who avoid that superannuation entitlement.

There are some politicians who argue that this makes a move to a twelve percent superannuation levy likely to encourage this trend.  In particular, small business employers will claim this superannuation outlay is unaffordable if it moves to twelve percent.

Our wage structure is still closely tied to compensation for employees required to work outside the traditional nine to five time structure in a five day week., despite the commercial world now operating on a seven day structure. It is these pay loadings that cause some traders to abandon weekend opening or change their business to self serve to make costs manageable.

Perhaps it is time we changed to compensate employment anywhere in the twenty-four hour, seven day a week cycle.  There is much to gain from spreading the working day far outside that old nine to five constraint, including reducing the commute on our road system and evening out the public transport numbers.  We have artificially constrained the business cycle because of elevated pay rates that apply when we employ outside the traditional time frame.

There is also the issue of throwing the onus of providing retirement income entirely on to the responsibility of employers.  It would not be unreasonable to expect employees to contribute to their own wellbeing in old age and both employer and employee mutually contributing would be a much fairer system.

Perhaps now would be an opportune time to revisit both the superannuation issue and the loadings that apply to work timings.  We are living in the twenty-first century and yet we apply thinking that applies to an era that is long past and gone.