{"id":809073,"date":"2026-07-18T23:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T23:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/809073\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T23:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T23:07:14","slug":"jazz-festivals-canned-in-newcastle-and-victoria-over-payday-superannuation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/809073\/","title":{"rendered":"Jazz festivals canned in Newcastle and Victoria over payday superannuation"},"content":{"rendered":"

New payday superannuation laws have struck a sour note with one of Australia’s leading jazz musicians.<\/p>\n

From July 1, anyone who hires a musician must pay them 12 per cent superannuation within seven days.<\/p>\n

Musicians have been entitled to superannuation since 1992, but super contributions could be made every three months if the performer had an ABN.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andy Firth, a Newcastle-based clarinet player who has performed across the world during a 40-year career, said the new rules could see live music disappearing from venues across the country.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Firth is concerned about how the changes will impact musicians in the future. (ABC Newcastle: Bruce Williams)<\/p>\n

“This will effectively kill a lot of projects, musical projects, recording, all sorts of stage productions,” he told 1233 ABC Newcastle Mornings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“It will kill it just because of the extra cost involved.”<\/p>\n

Mr Firth employs musicians for his big band projects, which feature as many as 17 performers.<\/p>\n

He said the paperwork required to ensure his musicians were paid their super would be untenable.<\/p>\n

“We’re not trained to do these advanced types of calculations and paperwork,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We will have to do that if we employ any of our fellow musicians or bands.<\/p>\n

“This is just another massive kick in the guts for musicians, and venues may just decide that it’s easier to play streaming music.”<\/p>\n

Mr Firth said the idea of paying superannuation to artists seemed like a good one, but the rules were having a wider impact. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“When you actually look into it, it’s a major headache for musicians and especially for band leaders and people who are employing musicians to work for projects,” he said.<\/p>\n

Festivals cancelled<\/p>\n

One victim of the changes is the Newcastle Hunter Jazz Festival.<\/p>\n

After 36 years, organisers have decided to abandon this year’s event just six weeks out.<\/p>\n

Murray Scoble is president of the volunteer-run festival and said he did not have the resources to get the bank and superannuation details of the hundreds of musicians who were due to play.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Newcastle Hunter Jazz Festival has been cancelled. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

“Trying to get that done for 300, 330 musicians in seven days after the festival would have been impossible,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This has really rocked us.<\/p>\n

“We’re feeling for our club members and particularly feeling for the musicians because they look to this as the key opportunity in a year to get in and play with lots of different people and listen to all sorts of great music.”<\/p>\n

The Inverloch Jazz Festival, scheduled to run in late July and early August in regional Victoria, has also been cancelled.<\/p>\n

A notice on the event’s website states the decision was made “due to new superannuation laws”.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Inverloch Jazz Festival website shows the event has been “cancelled due to new superannuation laws”. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Double whammy<\/p>\n

The Australian Live Music Business Council\u00a0(ALMBC) said the new rules were a “huge issue” for the industry coming on top of COVID, which effectively shut the industry down.<\/p>\n

“It’s just very distressing to see the implications in particular for that part of the industry; the administration burden is just too much for them,” ALMBC treasurer Kylie Thompson told 1233 ABC Newcastle Drive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“It’s really an unattainable situation and it is something that I know our industry is trying to submit to the ATO \u2026 that this doesn’t really sort of fit the music industry.”<\/p>\n

The ABC contacted federal Arts Minister Tony Burke but was directed to Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Daniel Mulino.<\/p>\n

\u201cPayday Super is\u00a0an important step\u00a0to ensure Australians\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0miss\u00a0out on\u00a0superannuation payments,” he said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe design of payday super includes arrangements for workers not on traditional payroll systems,\u00a0such as the workers at festivals like these,\u00a0which allow an extended\u00a0time frame\u00a0to\u00a0set\u00a0up\u00a0contributions.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New payday superannuation laws have struck a sour note with one of Australia’s leading jazz musicians. From July…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134,4695,9473,4154,36005,177761,5792],"class_list":["post-809073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-festivals","tag-jazz","tag-live-music","tag-musicians","tag-pay-day","tag-superannuation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}