Bondi Beach bounty – $5000 a day

Australians are aware of the fact that top public servants receive out-of-control salaries.

The number of department secretaries earning more than $1 million a year increased from two to seven. A million dollars a year is $2,740 a day.

In the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, these salaries are a scam. But documents recently released under FOI show something worse (but better if you’re a retired secretary).

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

On December 22, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appointed former Defense Minister Dennis Richardson to conduct a (hardly) independent review of Australia’s federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the wake of the Bondi terrorist attack.

The FOI reveals that Richardson was paid $5,000 a day.

Richardson, 78, has had a distinguished career of public service; He served as Director General of ASIO from 1996 to 2005, followed by Australia’s Ambassador to the United States until 2010, then Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade until 2012, and finally, as noted above, Minister of Defense until 2017.

But since he left, he hasn’t actually left.

He is a roving insider who has performed well on the public breast in retirement with more than $1.3 million in sole-sourced work, including a Review of the Legal Framework of the National Intelligence Community, a review of Integrity Concerns and Governance at the Regional Processing Administration (Home Affairs), a review of the 2003 Transfer of Cabinet Records (non-) and a review of the structure, management, performance and direction of the Australian Submarine Agency.

The Bondi concert added another 490 thousand dollars to the prize.

Richardson is being asked to do his own homework, in a sense, due to his previous role as ASIO’s Director General and his review of the National Intelligence Community’s framework. And all at a very good rate… for him.

Who wants to be a secretary when they charge twice as much to be a recalled secretary?

Is Albo’s ‘Richardson Review’ of Bondi independent or insider?

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“