Fat Cat bureaucrats. Rem Tribunal out of touch, out of sight
While top bureaucrats now earn millions a year, the court that decides who gets what is doing its best to keep its decisions secret. Rex Patrick reports.
The head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet receives more than $1 million a year; The Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Defense and Internal Affairs are not far behind with $960,000. In fact, only two department heads earn less than $900,000.
These are extremely generous salaries and benefits by international standards.
U.S. Government Department Secretaries, who run much larger agencies with much larger budgets, earn less than half these salaries. These are limited to $250,000, approximately $400,000.
Ministry of War
The Minister of War runs a department whose annual budget is larger than that of the entire Australian Government, yet receives less than half the salary of our Secretary of Defense.
These ridiculously generous salaries and benefits are determined by the Pay Tribunal, a secretive body that does most of its work behind closed doors, with little transparency or public scrutiny.
Fee Court
In a recent submission to the Senate on Senator Lambie’s bill to cap secretaries’ salaries, the Court offered no justification for the excessive salaries set. The long and short of their plea to the Committee considering the Bill was this: For over 50 years we have ensured independent pay for civil servants and surveyors – leave us alone!
Fat cat salaries and the secret Wage Tribunal
The Court consists of three part-time members, each appointed for five years by the Governor-General. Current members of the court are Holly Kramer (President), Heather Zampatti and Stephen Conry.
Kramer’s annual earnings are $148,932. He shares his time at the Tribunal with other work on the boards of ANZ bank and Fonterra, and is Chairman of the McKinnon Foundation. He has other jobs too.
Zampatti and Conry’s income is $50,780 annually. Zampatti is Chairman of the Silvertown Foundation and Evion Group. He is also a member of ASIC’s Financial Services Advisory Committee and Financial Sector Advisory Council.
Conry is Chairman of private investment firm Langdon Capital and Chairman of the Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority for the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.
There are no nurses, teachers, tradesmen or aged care workers in court.
Transparency question?
The court included a statement in the Senate’s submissions on the Lambie Bill that said:
“The determination of remuneration for public functions is rightly a matter of public interest. Transparency and accountability provided by an independent Tribunal enhances understanding, trust and confidence in the remuneration system.”
This is a statement that is difficult to reconcile with the response to a recent request for information. MWM About how they came up with new family travel rules for the Pollys.
Source: FOI
Nothing has been disclosed regarding the actual deliberations of the court.
MWM Normally such crazy corrections would be objected to, but for the reason stated below we are both adamant.
Pollies’ family trip
When the Anika Wells travel scandal broke in early December (to be fair, other travel scandals soon followed). After “some” pressure from the media, Prime Minister Albanese announced that he had proposed new travel changes to the Fees Tribunal.
‘I work really hard’: Minister defends family travel
MWM The FOI reveals that the Prime Minister did not make the offer directly. In fact, the Minister of State, Senator Don Farrell, and the Minister of Finance, Senator Katy Gallagher, wrote a letter to the Fees Tribunal on 22 December 2025 setting out the Government’s wishes.
And what we received from the Wage Tribunal on January 20, 2026 was…well…those desires.
So we might not bother objecting to fake privacy. Underneath all the corrections, the only thing that will probably be said is “yes sir and ma’am, Senators, we will do exactly as you ask.” How’s that for independence?
What we take away from all this is this
We have a transparent court that is not only independent but also non-transparent.
He is also completely unaware and does not give us value for money even for part-time salaries, to the extent that he spends his days progressing the salaries of all pollsters and public servants against the CPI and approving requests from ministers.
SNAFU.
Forget the “rules”, pollsters should stick their noses out of the cruise boat
Rex Patrick is a former South Australian Senator and formerly a submariner in the armed forces. Known as an anti-corruption and transparency warrior, Rex is also known as “Transparency Warrior“
