It is appalling that employee entitlements are not protected in a business insolvency

I still find it hard to believe that a developed country like Australia has no protection in place for money owed to employees when a company goes broke.  In most of the rest of the developed world, employee entititlements are paid out in priority to almost everyone else.  When business's are short of cash the first thing they do is tap into any money put aside for holiday pay, long service leave and sick leave.  Then they stop paying super contributions and any other deductions that they take from their employees pay packet.   The money that is taken from their entitlements then goes to - you guessed it, the banks! 

There is also a strong argument that  very small business should also have some priority.  Many businesses now pay their workers as sub contractors rather than employees.  So often you see very small businesses going to the wall  through little fault of their own, when big companies go broke.  That doesn't sound fair to me.