2014-09-05
Senator Larissa Waters
Not only do women earn on average 18 per cent less than men while they're at work but they're more likely to take time off work over their lifetimes for unpaid caring, which means less time to build up super.
One in three women have no super savings at all and the average superannuation payout for women is a third of the payout for men.
The gender inequality of both pay and super compound to leave many women disproportionately impoverished in their old age.
Sadly, the Abbott Government and the Palmer United Party teamed up in Parliament this week to entrench that inequality even further, by freezing the amount of superannuation employers are required by law to provide at 9.5 per cent for seven years.
This was despite that rate being due to increase to 10 per cent* and then by 0.5 per cent each year until it reached 12% in 2019.
But instead Tony Abbott and Clive Palmer have decided to repeal the mining tax, so that the big mining companies making squillions get off scot free, and workers, especially low income workers, are left with less money for retirement.
High income earners are far more likely than lower income earners to be paid more than the minimum legal superannuation rate as in these roles there's usually more opportunity to negotiate for better conditions.
As most of Australia's low income earners are women — due to the gender pay gap and part-time or casual work for caring duties – women will be hardest hit by the government's attack on super.
To make the situation worse, Tony Abbott and Clive Palmer, who no doubt don't have to worry about how they will fare in retirement and who both get 15% super, have also ganged up to abolish the low income super contribution from 2017.
Under the low income super contribution, the government puts money towards the retirement savings of workers earning less than $37,000 a year, which includes one in two working women and 80 per cent of women working on a casual or part-time basis.
I know that 2017 might seem like a long time away, and retirement even longer. Sometimes it's easy to get distracted with the busy here and now and forget about superannuation.
But that's probably what Tony Abbott and Clive Palmer are counting on us thinking.
Anyone who might want to have a child or might need to take time off work to take care for other family members from 2017 onward could be directly impacted by the abolition of the low income super contribution.
And then of course, there's the Abbott Government's university interest hikes to think about if you haven't paid off your uni loan or if you're thinking about studying in the future.
The interest doesn't stop compounding if you take time off work, or work less than full time, so it punishes women unfairly, since they are more likely to have to do this.
The Greens will do all we can to stop those attacks on universities getting through our Parliament but unfortunately with Clive Palmer doing deals with Tony Abbott the superannuation attacks have gotten through and been made into law.
There's still a lot of work to do in achieving financial equality for women, and Equal Pay Day is a good opportunity to raise awareness of this.
If you're having a drink after work this afternoon, why not make it an 'unhappy hour' in honour of Equal Pay Day and chat with your colleagues, friends and family about how the Abbott Government's attacks on super and university loans will have a real impact on so many women. If you're a woman, maybe you can even clock off 18% earlier than your male colleagues.
Senator Larissa Waters is the Australian Greens spokesperson for Women. This article originally appeared in Daily Life.
* corrected from 9.75% as published in original article