Victorian teachers sue over alleged unpaid superannuation

Jill Perkins plans to spend her retirement indulging her love of craft and reading.

"I want to explore trying to finish projects that I started that are all over the house and I want to try different things," Ms Perkins said.

"I'm just letting myself play and have fun."

The Portland Secondary College teacher is ready for retirement after 40 years in the classroom, 30 of those in the south-western Victorian town she calls home.

"I'd started in 1985. I've been in Portland for 30 years," she said.

"We had a [professional development] day and I thought, 'I just can't do another new initiative,'" she said.

"I really liked teaching. I liked being in the classroom. It was all those other burdens that in the end just wore me down … it's a full-on job."

But as she prepares to take her foot off the accelerator the 63-year-old thinks she might have been short-changed.

Ms Perkins is the lead claimant in a class action in the Federal Court on behalf of the Victorian branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU).

The union is suing the Victorian Department of Education over what it says are unpaid superannuation payments for tens of thousands of teachers.

Ms Perkins believes she is personally owed nearly $10,000 in super and investment earnings.

"Not enough to buy a new car, but a considerable enough sum that I thought that is something that could have been very helpful," she said.

"It's quite an unfair thing to realise that we'd been underpaid."

The union says the department failed to pay superannuation entitlements on an annual payment for teachers called the Salary Loading Allowance from 1995 to 2023.

It estimates the total loss of contributions to be around $100 million, with an additional $300 million loss of investment earnings.

"The Department of Education for many decades has decided that a salary loading allowance, which is a payment that every worker in a public school receives, shouldn't be being paid superannuation on top of that allowance," the AEU's Victorian president Justin Mullaly said.

"We say that's wrong. We say that's unlawful. And so we've made an application to the Federal Court to sue the government for that superannuation.

"We think that this applies as early as 1995 and so that's why we're seeking a declaration from the court that would assert in our favour that there should have been superannuation paid on this allowance."

The Australian Taxation Office has previously determined that superannuation is payable on the allowance, ordering the department to pay.

But the department is appealing against that decision in a separate Federal Court case.

The AEU's action would not be determined until there is a judgement on that case.

Mr Mullaly said the department did begin making the superannuation payments on the allowance in 2023.

"They don't want to have a decision that requires them to pay, even though they're paying," the union president said.

"Certainly it makes it interesting, to say the least, in the context of the union's claim on behalf of members."

When asked why it began paying super on the allowance in 2023, an Education Department spokesperson said it was seeking clarity on its superannuation obligations as ATO guidance on the issue had shifted.

They would not comment further, saying the matter was before the courts.

The court action comes as the state government faces an enormous increase in wages for public school staff after protracted negotiations and industrial action ended in a pay rise offer of up to 32 per cent.

That agreement is yet to be endorsed by members.

But Mr Mullaly said he was not concerned about the potential added cost to government if the court ruled in the union's favour.

"Well, when you underpay workers and you don't do that in the right way under the law, you don't have a choice," he said.

Ms Perkins said she believed paying the fair amount was the state government's duty as an employer.

"There's always the 'we don't have enough money' [argument]. But I think that if you are an employer you have a duty to pay people's superannuation contributions," she said.

"It's part of the deal."