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It’s a cosy little club – and you’re not in it. You’re just paying for it.
I’m talking about the taxpayer-funded nomenklatura of the Long March left elite who’ve spent the last few decades appointing each other to one sinecure after another. Whether it’s DEI-hires with chests full of participation trophies running the Federal Police and the military, or university administrators paying themselves million-dollar salaries, the racket goes on without end.
Especially the public service. Despite collapsing productivity, the mandarins in Canberra pay themselves more than even the prime minister.
And no doubt are about to pay themselves even more.
The salaries of Australia’s highest-paid bureaucrats will be reviewed for the first time in 15 years due to concerns their pay, which ranges between $800,000 and $1 million a year, is out of line with community expectations.
The independent Remuneration Tribunal expressed concern that confidence in the pay of public office holders could be lost if remuneration was no longer “credible, consistent and well-understood”, as it announced a 14-month review.
In other words, they’re not about to reduce their gargantuan sense of entitlement, let alone loosen their death-grip on the river of gold. No, instead they’ll just ‘explain’ to the rest of us exactly why they ‘deserve’ even more.
“Remuneration for departmental secretaries has evolved over several decades in response to changes in work value, complexity and [public service]-wide remuneration structures,” a statement from the tribunal read.
“Evolved”, meaning that they’ve steadily scratched each other’s backs for decades.
Dr Steven Kennedy, head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, is the highest-paid departmental secretary, with a base salary of $1,035,690. Jenny Wilkinson, head of the Treasury department, earns $1,009,790 per year.
By contrast, the prime minister earns an annual salary of around $622,050, and the opposition leader earns around $432,250.
Other departmental secretaries earn between $983,910 and $828,550 of base salary a year. However, in the 2024–25 financial year, seven secretaries, including Home Affairs head Stephanie Foster and Infrastructure head Jim Betts, earned more than $1 million.
Top public service mandarins also enjoy additional benefits, such as a “settling-in allowance” of up to $24,178 to “assist with the transition” to Canberra, and a 12-month severance package for termination before the end of a secretary’s term.
By way of comparison, these public servants earn as much as Britain’s highest-paid public servants, in a nation with three times the population as ours. And far more than even the most highly paid US federal employees, who take home a paltry AUS$600,000.
This mirrors the situation in the military. The Australian Defence Force has more high-ranking officers per service member than either Britain or the US. Multiple top-level ADF officers are paid more than twice as much as even the US chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Does anyone think we’re getting value for money?
Some MPs have campaigned against the sky-high salaries, with Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie introducing legislation in February attempting to cap departmental secretary salaries at $430,000 per year, a move rejected by Labor and the coalition.
David Pocock, independent senator for the ACT, said: “When departmental secretaries are earning close to 10 times the average Australian wage, and seven of them are clearing a million dollars [in actual pay] a year, questions have to be asked.”
“These salaries are well beyond what counterparts in comparable countries are paid, and are out of line with what Australians expect. I welcome the decision of the Remuneration Tribunal taking a look at them,” Pocock said.
In case any Pollyanna taxpayers have the least doubt where this ‘review’ will end up:
The last review took place in 2012 and found departmental secretaries were underpaid.
(Emphasis added.)
Show me a single ordinary Australian taxpayer who agrees with that ludicrous claim.
