Public pressure leads to review of mandarins’ excessive salaries

Public pressure has now caused the Pay Tribunal to review how it determines the salaries of our senior bureaucrats. former senator Rex Patrick reports of warts overwhelming the review.

The irresponsible behavior of the Pay Review Tribunal has led to a much-needed review, and not because members of the tribunal have had an epiphany.

MWMbureaucracy oriented mandarin And Canberra Times They took the lead in exposing the exorbitant salaries of our Department Secretaries. Likewise, Senator Jacqui Lambie with her Fee Court Amendment (It’s for Public Service, Not Profit) Bill 2025. All this contributed to public anger.

The announcement of the review came 15 days later MWM It published a scathing article revealing that the tribunal, based on its own evidence in the Senate inquiry, had determined secretary salaries without reference to similar positions in State bureaucracies or similar positions overseas.

They did not do due diligence.

Fat cat salaries. Civil service chiefs in a world of their own

Caesar judges Caesar (secretly)

There is a need for a reset in secretary salaries. Something is wrong when the Prime Minister who runs the country receives a salary of $622 thousand, and the ministerial secretaries receive much more.

Secretaries’ Wages 2024-26 (Source: Annual Reports)

There are two main problems with the review.

First, Caesar judges Caesar. The Fees Tribunal has become incompetent over time and will only be keen to come up with new figures that might show they have gone slightly wrong.

Secondly, and closely related to this, the Court decided that all statements should be kept confidential. The guidelines for applications say nothing will be made public; “Responses to the consultation will be kept confidential and will not be published attribution or in full.”

This is the Court’s self-protectiveness.

The good ideas of the contributors and those that may conflict with the Court’s final position will not be visible.

We will not see statements from those who think the Court should increase the salaries of the Secretary, statements from those who think the current arrangements are good, and statements from those who challenge the generosity of the current salaries. If secretaries get together and plead their own case, you cannot criticize or approve of their arguments.

The default should be openness and the Court should have the power to make submissions in camera, upon request, only where appropriate.

When he submitted his contribution to the Senate inquiry into his Bill, Senator Lambie wrote: “Significant work needs to be done to improve the transparency of the court’s operations.” Contacted about the confidentiality approach taken in the review, Senator Lambie described it as a “sham process”.

very high

The Court should not argue that the Government should attract the right people into Secretary roles. The truth is that Secretaries’ jobs are not subject to competition.

• The current Prime Minister and Cabinet chief is Steve Kennedy, who was relieved of his duties as Treasury Secretary.
• The current head of Internal Affairs is Stephanie Foster. He began his Civil Service career in 1987 and was promoted to Secretary in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
• The current head of Foreign Affairs and Trade is Jan Adams. He served as ministerial advisor from 1993 to 1996, moving to Foreign Affairs and Trade; He remained there until he transferred from the Japanese Embassy to the Secretariat.
• The current Secretary of Defense is Megan Quinn, who comes directly from another Secretary role in the Department for Industry.
• The current head of the Attorney General’s Office is Kathryn Jones. He is a 25-year veteran of public service. Prior to his appointment as Secretary, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Department of Defense, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Department of Finance, and Deputy Secretary in the Office of the Attorney General.

The pattern is clear.

Becoming a secretary is rarely the result of competition; It means doing a reasonable job (there’s no reason to err on the side of caution) and being politically sensitive.

As some suggest, the role of secretaries is not comparable to that of a company’s CEO. One of the most important skills of a CEO is the ability to generate revenue and then make careful choices about how to spend that revenue to achieve the company’s current and future goals, all while generating a profit.

Secretaries know little about making money. Their money comes to their door in the form of a budget every May. And unlike the commercial world, there is often little feedback on whether money spent is achieving current goals.

The United States did it right. U.S. Government Department Secretaries, who run much larger agencies with much larger budgets, receive less than half of these salaries under U.S. law. These are limited to $250,000, or approximately $403,000.

Their Minister of War runs a department with a larger annual budget than the entire Australian Government, yet he receives less than half the salary of our Secretary of the Department of Defence.

Say what you say (we will)

anyone can do it to apply The court, however, only needs to be aware of the fraud; They write their own papers in complete confidentiality.

MWM encourages everyone to do this; You have until June 10, 2026, but they also encourage you to insist on having your ideas and opinions published by them.

MWM will send this article and give them permission to publish it. But we won’t hold our breath waiting for them to do it.

Fat Cat bureaucrats. Rem Court out of sight, out of sight