Oz Pollies Remuneration

[Aussiejeff]

I'm surprised to see that out of 27 votes cast, I'm the only one that thinks (some) pollies deserve considerably more...

Ha! I admire your bravery, doc!

At least now we know who the "flamin' eejit" was!!!

I'm curious to see you refined your pick to "some". So, by your definition if only "some" deserve considerably more, what about the majority, or "the rest"?


chiz,


aj

 

[Aussiejeff]

*tiddly bump*

33 Votes so far.

More than 50% would like to see a cut of at least 20%.

KRudd?

R U listening?

 

[doctorj]

I’d love to have time to write a more detailed response, but broadly, I believe some pollies deserve more short tail remuneration because we need to incentivise young, bright Australians to pursue careers in politics to insure a pool of quality leaders for tomorrow, rather than losing our brightest to Law Firms, Banks, an oil rig somewhere or overseas (for the record I’d say the same of some teachers).

I firmly believe that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys and the reality is there are monkeys in politics all over the world. Australia needs the brightest, most talented individuals at the helm to help ensure the prosperity and security of future generations of Australians and as the current generation, we all have a duty to make sure that’s possible.

All that said, I think that if they are to be paid closer to market rates, their long tail benefits (defined benefit pension, travel etc) needs to be brought into line with market as well.

 

[Miner]

I believe more than remuneration check the pollies should have be asked as a minimum to have a tertiary qualification to start with. There are many pollies who are well qualified like Julia G, John Howard, Kim Beasley, Tony, Julie Bishop etc. But there are some idiots as well. Considering they represent the constitutency of mums, dads and children and also vote in important decision making for the country impacting not millions but billions of dollars it is essential.

Vox Populi will be still applicable once the criteria is settled.

Otherwise it will be an inferiority complex or jealousy or incompetency when a lowly paid pollie deals with CBA Chairman or BHPB CEO who earns each week the same amount of salary which the pollie probably earns in a year.

Of course many of the Private CEOS are smart but many pollies are smarter (see Richard Court only a BCOM , ex Premier and now heading successfully GRD Minproc).

So if we remunerate the pollies with respected salary then only we get quality people to go into politics, no Brian Burke saga or corruption (hopefully) and then we demand the pound of flesh for their work deliverables.

We have similar bottlenecks with our top bureaucrats as well. They help the pollies to make decisions. But we should consider who or why some one smart will take $120,000 pa job as a Director in a public sector when a normal graduate engineer starts his or her career with $75,000 pa and most of them earn the same salary in 3- 4 years time ?

Irony remains that those bureaucrats do all ground work for the countries strategies and we shout when their salary gets increased by 5% !!

 

[doogie_goes_off]

Miner - then it would not be a true democracy, next you'll suggest that pollies shouldn't have a disability. Basically we need a diverse range of politicians to represent a diverse community and they need to renumerated properly to attract people who would otherwise contibute in some other way to society. Pollies cop plenty of stick and deserve the $

 

[doogie_goes_off]

...however I agree that public servents should be paid appropriately too. Think how many duds we could get in treasury if they don't get paid properly. After all government is the biggest business of them all.

 

[Happy]

...
I firmly believe that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys and the reality is there are monkeys in politics all over the world. Australia needs the brightest, most talented individuals at the helm to help ensure the prosperity and security of future generations of Australians and as the current generation, we all have a duty to make sure that’s possible.

All that said, I think that if they are to be paid closer to market rates, their long tail benefits (defined benefit pension, travel etc) needs to be brought into line with market as well.

Argument used extensively and hardly anybody could disagree with it until now, when all the WORLD MESS brought up by our brightest handsomly paid CEOs.

But what is the answer and how to find the truth what is their real agenda when they apply for high end jobs?

 

[Aussiejeff]

So far, only a miniscule 10% think our esteemed, pretty pollies are worthy of any increase in remuneration.

Based on the evidence thus far,

"I think the Nay's have it, Mr Speaker! The public internet bill proposal to "Slash Federal & State Politician's Remuneration By More Than 10%" is passed on a majority show of hands"

If only.....