We know they have to get paid, but we just don’t want to hear how much.
The public outing of politicians’ salaries generally produces a national response akin to the face we make while cleaning lumps of soap and hair from the plughole in the shower. It’s a blend of shock, awe and quiet admiration. It takes a lot of guts to put so little in and yet garner so much in return.
Brace yourselves.
Last week the independent Remuneration Tribunal announced a 2% pay rise for all public servants starting on July 1. That’s the same day Australian taxpayers will not be getting the tax cuts promised during the election.
The PM has explained that this promise must be broken because it’s actually quite difficult with dates and writs and paperwork and stuff. But the good news is; he’s named himself Minister for the Public Service in order to get on with some “bureaucracy congestion-busting”.
So, this latest pay rise kicks in the same day penalty rates are slashed a further 10%. Weekend hospitality workers will be losing about $40 a week while the “congestion busting” public “servants” pick up a lazy 2%.
This is “The Promise of Australia”.
In his former life Scott Morrison was managing director of Tourism Australia. He was responsible for the “where the bloody hell are you?” campaign. He was on $318,031 in taxpayer dollars just before his contract was not renewed. Now he’s the PM (with a recent bump) he’s in the $550K Club.
Cue outrage from those of us who clean our own bathrooms and admonishment from those who hire in “help”.
“We get what we pay for!”
“If we want the best, we have to pay!”
“If these people were in private enterprise…”
But they’re not. They chose to be politicians. This is a different business and so the rates are substantially different. $500,000 is small bananas if you are an actual CEO.
In my town, the CEO of City of Greater Geelong is pulling in $440,000-plus, and the vice chancellor at Deakin University is on $1 million plus.
Our recent royal commission put the spotlight on the blokes at the banks.
These bank blokes (and they are all blokes) are on a serious personal wealth loop: CBA’s chief executive has an $8.36 million package; Westpac’s boss took home $4.9 million in 2018; the CEO of ANZ got $5.25 million and the AMP’s Francesco De Ferrari has a package of $8.3 million. But if he meets “short-term and long-term targets” he can clip $17.7 million in cash, shares and prizes (sorry, options).
Today, our PM is already on more coin (comparatively) than the President of the United States, twice as much as Teresa May and about the same as NZ PM Jacinda Ardern. The big Canberra money is actually going to the congestion busters.
Here’s the rub. The problem with Australian pollie pay rises is not the dollars, it is the sense. Sometimes it’s wise to say: “No thanks… I don’t need any more right now.”
In August 2018, Ardern rejected a NZ pollie pay rise and legislated for a pay freeze. Ardern said the NZ Remuneration Authority got it wrong. She said she wanted to send
…a strong signal about what our government values … and our determination of course to make sure that the economy is working for everyone…
No election has ever been fought and won on the need for MP’s to get more money. The current pay rise is bad optics for a PM who secured votes on promises he has already broken.
In less than a month after winning office, Scott Morrison has walked away from July 1 tax cuts, shipped home a boat load of asylum seekers, dumped his former environment minister (despite telling the electorate that she would absolutely keep her job) and then flown off to present the Queen with a book about a racehorse.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, the AFP is investigating journalists as Chinese war ships arrive in Sydney Harbour.
If this is burning for Australia, where the bloody hell are the fire extinguishers?
Should Scott Morrison order a pay freeze? How should Australia deal with its wage stagnation crisis? Send your thoughts along with your full name to boss@crikey.com.au.
Before the age of the professional career politician, it could be credibly argued that some (mostly Liberal) MPs were sacrificing money to enter parliament, but those days are long gone. It would be an interesting exercise to examine the pre-parliamentary CVs of our current 227 federal parliamentarians and make an informed judgement as to how many of them could conceivably attract a salary of $200K plus in the non-political work-force.
You could pay this lot half as much and lose virtually nothing in “quality”.
They’ll only be worth more when they leave with their contacts and connections..
We pay big buck$ instead of peanuts and still get monkeys.
Not all politicians are living the high life on generous salaries. Pity the hard-working rural local government councillors who struggle to manage their increasingly onerous duties imposed by state governments and yet earn less than $20,000 per annum, and with no super. If you want diverse representation in all levels of government, this is one area where salary increases would be more than reasonable.
That is 2% for a limited number of elite office holders. Not all Commonwealth public servants. The rank and file will get whatever increases, if any, are in their workplace agreement for the next year and on the date specified in the agreement i.e. probably not 1/7.
Good bureaucracy is about good process adherence, not bloody-mindedness, but good process to ensure tax dollars, paid by the voters is spent appropriately and according to law. The PM wants to be a ‘bureaucracy buster’ apparently. Well, he may be the right guy if the reporting The Saturday Paper is correct. That reporting indicated and inferred that he chose not to follow good process and raised concerns with his then minister, to the point where, it Is alleged, he was let go from his $300k a year job. Good bureaucracy gets things done in a timely, efficient, effective, lawful and transparent fashion. Beware those who want the process sped up, because that’s when ‘timely’ tends to trump ‘effective, lawful and transparent’, history would tell us.
The mechanism for determining pay rises for politicians needs to be overhauled. Getting a pay rise at present with wage growth , inflation and an economy in the doldrums makes no sense. Pay rises should be based in performance. So what we need is a range of KPI’s to evaluate politicians performance against.
Sadly, I am not at all surprised! What makes it worse many in the LNP declare themselves to be Christians! Where is the love and compassion, or, putting others first?
Sadly, I am not at all surprised! What makes it worse many in the LNP declare themselves to be Christians! Where is the love and compassion, or, putting others first?