Yahoo News The $1m-plus club: Christine Holgate and NBN executives among government workers paid more than PM
At least 115 people who work for the federal government are paid more than Scott Morrison, a Guardian Australia analysis has revealed.
The list of those receiving more than the prime minister’s $549,250-a-year salary is topped by the boss of the state-owned company charged with rolling out the troubled National Broadband Network, Stephen Rue, who is on a package worth more than $3.1m a year – close to six times Morrison’s wage.
An additional four NBNCo executives are in the $1m-plus club, a group of eight people that also includes Australia Post chief executive Christine Holgate, who is on $1.6m a year.
It comes amid an uproar over the benefits enjoyed by commonwealth public sector workers including Holgate and top brass at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, where chairman James Shipton, who is on $775,000 a year, stood aside last week while Treasury investigates $118,000 worth of tax advice he received at taxpayers’ expense.
Asic deputy chair Daniel Crennan QC resigned on Monday, walking away from his $620,000-a-year position after Treasury said it would investigate almost $70,000 in rental payments he received from the regulator.
Holgate, meanwhile, has endured weeks of negative press about spending on executives at Australia Post, which included claims of $34,000 spent on luxury hotel bills while she was staying in Melbourne, where the organisation is headquartered, and $20,000 spent on Cartier watches she handed out as bonuses.
Shipton, Crennan and Holgate have all denied doing anything wrong.
Guardian Australia compiled pay from across the commonwealth public sector, including government business enterprises, such as Australia Post; statutory bodies, such as Asic; and the national broadcasters, the ABC and SBS.
The survey is unlikely to be complete, and not all the costs of the large pay packets are borne by taxpayers; some organisations, such as Australia Post, have big revenue streams that mean no contribution from Treasury is required to pay executive wages.
In the case of Australia Post, it has been struggling with the move away from mail to online, but has remained profitable due an increase in parcels, which enabled it to return a $21m dividend to the government last year.
Others are dependent on government funding – by the end of June, NBNCo had drawn down almost all of a $19.5bn line of credit made available by the commonwealth.
And for most statutory bodies, the cost of employing people such as Rebecca Skinner, who is paid almost $750,000 a year to run the agency responsible for the botched robodebt program, Services Australia, falls entirely on the taxpayer.
The woman who was in charge of what is now Services Australia during the program, Kathryn Campbell, has moved up in the world to become secretary of the Department of Social Services, a position attracting a wage of between about $776,000 and $864,000.
Among departmental heads, Morrison’s former chief of staff, Phil Gaetjens, earns the most – $914,000 – as secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
The chief justice of the high court, Susan Kiefel, is the commonwealth’s highest-paid judicial officer, receiving $608,000 a year – $50,000 a year more than each of the six regular justices of the court, who at $551,880 a head are paid only a little more than the prime minister.
Most statutory office bearers are paid a standard rate but some get special deals.
For example, the coordinator general of the National Drought and North Queensland Flood Response and Recovery Agency, former conservative politician Shane Stone, receives an individual loading of $100,000 a year, taking his total wage to $544,390 – a few thousand dollars short of Morrison’s pay.
However, across the broader public service the top 10 highest-paid positions are dominated by executives at NBNCo and power generator Snowy Hydro, whose managing director, Paul Broad, came in second at just over $2m a year.
The data also shows that wages tend to be highest among government business enterprises, which have to compete for executive talent with a private sector where the rage of shareholders is the only curb to bosses’ pay.
Guardian Australia’s analysis also shows that at Australia Post there are five executives, including Holgate, and 27 staff, whose names are not revealed in the organisation’s annual report, who earn more than Morrison.
A payment of more than $836,000 to one unnamed staff member is believed to be due to a redundancy.
However, Australia Post also has six staff members paid between $595,000 and $620,000.
The $120,000 Holgate’s boss, Australia Post chair Lucio Di Bartolomeo, receives for the role leaves him well short of the PM’s pay.
However, when added to his roles as chair of Australian Naval Infrastructure and the deputy chair of the Moorebank Intermodal Company, which is developing a freight centre in Sydney, his total pay from commonwealth roles swells to $353,000.
