Australian CEO pay scandal averted by PR spin and media churnalism

While the CEO salaries in Australia rise to $ 39.5 million, the media normalizes the economic inequality of our country, normalizing it, Carl Rhodes.

Every year since its establishment in 2001, the Australian Pension Investors Council (Acidal) Published a report on CEO Pay in the largest public companies in Australia.

Over the years, this report accidentally chronic the trauma of economic inequality caused by neoliberal surplus. It has always been a sober reading to find out that industrial captains can command. 2025 report It is not an exception.

The report, published in June, shows that the country’s highest paid CEO has received $ 39.5 million home. This Leveta Gone Victor HerreroHe resigned as the CEO of the Global Jewelery Chain Lovisa On May 21, 2025.

Next Macquarie Bank presidential Shemara WikramanayakeHe completed his financial year with $ 29.762.181.

At the hundreds of Australian companies, the average wage was slightly over 5.7 million dollars. This is 55 times higher than the average earnings of an adult in Australia.

Inequality festival

In the middle of the inequality Festival where the report was arrested so much, the title Acidal Given to the report Press release Read on June 19:

‘Cords who cut gold parachutes for Australian CEOs.’

Among the stories of all corporate surplus stories that may have been removed from the report thought The biggest news was:

‘… Termination payments to the CEOs of the largest listed companies in Australia fell to the lowest levels in 15 years.’

According to ACSI’s manager, Ed JohnThis amendment was the result of the company committees using the laws existing for themselves since 2009. Clearly, they did not hurry! Anyway, the only thing is that when the big bosses leave the best job, they can’t get as big as before, for some reason.

The mainstream media of Australia received news value. ABCs coverage ACSI Press Release Almost Parrot, Ceiling Till ‘Gold parachutes for the best corporate leaders of Australia fall to the lowest level in 15 years’.

Nine entertainment Sydney Morning Herald– Brisbane Times And AgeThey all ran in the same article, ‘CEO fees fall and gold parachutes collapsed’.

Economic injustice normalization

It would be easy to make the main current media response to the ASSI report lazy “complexity“-A term that has been in the circulation since the mid-2000s to describe the process in which the warriors recyclable the versions of the media and wire service stories recyclable them, conveys them as original reporting.

Perhaps it is an empty reporting case, or perhaps harm journalists who respond to the unrealistic demands of the editors. Regardless of the reason, complexity journalism reproduction and distribution Opinions from elite sources.

ASSI, membership on its own words:

“Australia and international asset holders and corporate investors with funds under more than $ 1.9 trillion.”

The effect of this complexity is abrasive. The strange level of economic inequality, which is heralded by the ACSI report, deserves to be a national scandal. Instead, gross economic injustice is relatively good -natured. In the case of inequality, it is implied that even things become better in Australia.

Does the mainstream media normalize inequality? . article inside Sydney Morning Herald It describes investors as heroically restrained in the institutional surplus by shrinking the gold parachute.

In addition, for the CEOs of the top 100 companies, the median wage has fallen marginalized in the last 10 years, stating our problems, well below the best bosses in England and the United States.

Double standards

It is not a excuse that we are not as bad as the countries where CEO Pay is the most obscene. The truth is that in the last 40 years, the Australian CEOs put a largely increasing share of the economic value created by Australian workers in their pockets, and with these workers, little profitable gains.

ACSI reported that today’s Australian CEOs are 55 times the average worker in the 1990s, this rate estimated The ratio spent zigzag zigzags in the intervening period, but the general orbit was strongly upward.

Does this mean that today’s CEOs are three times better than the 1990s colleagues? No. This means only a larger cake slice for themselves.

In the meantime, the hosting is increasingly available for Australian and wages. growth It was straight. If business leaders have anything to do with this, this will not change. Employer groups continue to lobby to reduce the government increase Minimum and reward fees.

Australia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Unmerciful) argued that increasing wages may only lead to business failures and that increases should be justified only by workers’ productivity. Of course, CEO productivity is not mentioned.

He walks and speaks like a double standard. When the CEO Pay jumps from 50 to 55 times the average workers per year, it passes with very few explanations. However, the idea that workers may be inadequate increase Anger in more than 2.6 percent meeting room and news room.

Go fairly

Australia has long been awarded itself as a land “go fairly“The ideal of an egalitarian society in which the character is important than the class when it comes to both opportunities and results. The extravagance of the CEO wage is exhausted in the face.

Economic inequality On the rise in Australia, CEO Pay is a prominent dimension of injustice. Unfortunately, questions about what to create Australia economically economically do not exist to a great extent in the political discourse in Australia.

At such times, the media needs to be democratic responsibility to inform, educate and promote discussions about the most important social, political and economic issues of the country.

Don’t basket it won’t cut it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfvzifm0e8k

Carl Rhodes is a professor of business and community at Sydney Technology University. Five wrote book On the relationship between liberal democracy and contemporary capitalism. You can follow him on Twitter @Profcarlrhodes.

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