The salaries of Australia’s highest-paid bureaucrats will likely be reviewed for the primary time in 15 years because of issues their pay, which levels between $800,000 and $1 million a yr, is out of line with neighborhood expectancies.
The impartial Remuneration Tribunal expressed worry that self assurance within the pay of public place of work holders may well be misplaced if remuneration was once now not “credible, constant and well-understood”, because it introduced a 14-month evaluate.
“Remuneration for departmental secretaries has advanced over a number of a long time in line with adjustments in paintings worth, complexity and [public service]-wide remuneration constructions,” a remark from the tribunal learn.
“Present preparations have now not been comprehensively tested for almost 15 years, and the tribunal considers a complete evaluate each well timed and suitable,” it stated.
“The tribunal recognises the sturdy public hobby within the remuneration of senior public officers and is dedicated to making sure preparations stay honest, clear and aligned with recent expectancies.”
Dr Steven Kennedy, head of the Division of Top Minister and Cupboard, is the highest-paid departmental secretary, with a base wage of $1,035,690. Jenny Wilkinson, head of the Treasury division, earns $1,009,790 in step with yr.
Against this, the top minister earns an annual wage of round $622,050, and the opposition chief earns round $432,250.
Different departmental secretaries earn between $983,910 and $828,550 of base wage a yr. Then again, within the 2024-25 monetary yr, seven secretaries, together with House Affairs head Stephanie Foster and Infrastructure head Jim Betts, earned greater than $1 million.
Most sensible public carrier mandarins additionally experience further advantages, reminiscent of a “settling-in allowance” of as much as $24,178 to “help with the transition” to Canberra, and a 12-month severance package deal for termination ahead of the top of a secretary’s time period.
Some MPs have campaigned towards the sky-high salaries, with Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie introducing regulation in February making an attempt to cap departmental secretary salaries at $430,000 in step with yr, a transfer rejected via Exertions and the Coalition.
David Pocock, impartial senator for the ACT, stated: “When departmental secretaries are incomes on the subject of 10 instances the common Australian salary, and 7 of them are clearing one million bucks [in actual pay] a yr, questions must be requested”.
“Those salaries are way past what opposite numbers in similar nations are paid, and are out of line with what Australians be expecting. I welcome the verdict of the Remuneration Tribunal looking at them,” Pocock stated.
The tribunal units salaries for all federal MPs, judges and top-level bureaucrats. In June 2025, the tribunal implemented a 2.4 in step with cent pay upward thrust for politicians around the board, seeing a backbench MP’s wage boosted to $239,267 in step with yr.
The remaining evaluate came about in 2012 and located departmental secretaries had been underpaid.
Responses to the tribunal’s session paper are open till early June. The tribunal will entire its evaluate via mid-2027.
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Nick Newling is a federal politics reporter for The Sydney Morning Bring in and The Age.Attach by the use of X or e-mail.