Unions demand senator apologise to young workers for ‘cats and dogs’ comment
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Opposition Leader Angus Taylor must bring Senator Andrew Bragg “to heel”, the ACTU says, after the senator suggested that paying superannuation to under-18 workers would lead to paying superannuation to cats and dogs.
In an address to the National Press Club earlier this week (12 August), Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg railed against compulsory superannuation, calling it a “strange but huge illiberal experiment”.
“Mandates are always costly. And in this case, it takes 12 per cent from people’s wages to vest them with managers they will never meet. It is a loss of liberty,” he said.
“Increasingly, Australians are getting to the preservation age, which is 60, and using super to pay off their mortgages. What was the point if there is no public finance benefit and minimal personal benefit?”
Senator Bragg went on to lambast the Labor Party for its recent decision to introduce compulsory superannuation for workers under the age of 18, regardless of the number of hours worked per week. “Why not super for cats and dogs?” he said.
The senator repeated the line on ABC Afternoon Briefing with Patricia Karvelas, saying “there’ll be superannuation for cats and dogs soon”.
When pressed by Karvelas whether he wants to dismantle compulsory superannuation, Senator Bragg called it a “repressive system” and likened it to communism.
“I’m a believer in choice. I think the super scheme has been a massive failure, probably the biggest failure of public policy in the last 50 years, because it’s failed to help the budget, and it doesn’t really help people. What it does do is it helps banks and unions and all the other bloodsuckers that are on the tick of the system,” he said.
At its recently held national conference, the federal Labor Party voted to include a policy to extend compulsory super regardless of the hours worked, in its National Platform. Currently, workers under 18 are only eligible for compulsory Superannuation Guarantee payments from their employer if they work more than 30 hours per week for that employer.
Responding to the senator’s comments, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) said that the nation’s superannuation system is the envy of the world and prevents Australians from retiring into poverty after a lifetime of hard work.
ACTU assistant secretary Joseph Mitchell said: “Senator Andrew Bragg’s likening of young Australian workers to animals is nothing short of disgusting. Young workers work incredibly hard and deserve the same rights and conditions as all other workers.
“Young workers deserve their wages, their penalty rates, and they deserve to be paid superannuation just like all other working people.”
“Senator Bragg’s personal obsession with undermining our world-leading superannuation system must be brought to heel.
“Angus Taylor has already warned Senator Bragg about freelancing; he must ask the senator to immediately retract these offensive comments and apologise to young workers. Australian workers love their super and won’t allow the Coalition to attack it for their own self-interested, anti-worker ideological agenda.”
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