15 June 2009

1.5% pay rise for the legislative assembly

| johnboy
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Jon Stanhope has waited until the evening news bulletins were in bed to make mention of a 1.5% pay rise for members of the Legislative Assembly.

    The pay of ACT MLAs remains the second-lowest in the nation and is almost $13,000 a year less than the base pay rate for Commonwealth Parliamentarians.

    The Remuneration Tribunal also granted increases of approximately 1.5% to executives and other public officials.

Personally I’d like to see their pay much higher, but I can’t see the public coming at it.

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Andrew Leigh over at the ANU has this timely op-ed out in the AFR, “reviewing the evidence on whether higher pay (a) gets better-quality people to run for office, and (b) improves the performance of legislators once they’re in office.

Peewee Slasher11:08 am 16 Jun 09

#10. I’m not convinced that paying more money gets us better services or performers. it will serve to attract a wider interest in a given position, whose motivations will surely be…the money.

Offer me more money and I’ll do the work. The same goes for many people in all walks of life.

The 1.5% increase is reasonable, but I take umbrage when any MLA argues aginst a similar payrise for the ACT public service. Or when a business council argues against minimal increases for blue collar workers, whilst fattening themselves at the table.

I’m yet to see the quality of personnel be improved anywhere by reducing pay and conditions.

The peanuts and monkeys arguments appeals to the kind of person that subscribes to the West Wing fantasy. If we can attract the smartest guys into government, they will solve all our problems.

The reward politicians are seeking is power. Remuneration is all but irrelevant. There are much better avenues for people driven by financial rewards.

I still think all politicians should have performance-based pay. If the GDP increases, so does their pay, and if it falls, so does their pay! And their pensions should be adjusted on the same basis, so that the long term impact of their actions is visited upon them when they’re old and decrepit…

Steady Eddie7:32 am 16 Jun 09

Deckard said :

and there’s the old saying that’s true – if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.

Wrong – if you pay more money you get bigger monkeys. We’ve been paying politicians more and more over the years and there is not one skerrick of evidence that the standard of public administration has improved as a result – in fact it could be argued that it has declined considerably.

PS I wonder if the regular sparing partners (you know, the staffers from both sides that regularly infiltrate RiotACT) will suddenly find a common cause to defend?

Come in spinners

I’ve no problem paying them what they currently get, or more. What I’m wary of is that this decision (presumably based on the Govt submission) is aimed at capping public sector pay rises, and no doubt future grants to non-govt organisations, to 1.5% also. Reminds of the Carnell era.

A quick look at the other recent decisions handed down by the Tribunal; to Chief Executives and Executives, and to Full Time Holders of Public Office (mostly very well paid employees), for example, have also been at that rate, so it seems the Govt is laying the groundwork for a stoush with its workforce, and others. I wonder whether doctors and nurses, among others, will wear this, or simply walk?

See: http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/governance/remtrib/determinations

Wraith said :

Hmmm, there is also the saying of one late Mr. Packer, who announced to Government Officials that he wouldn’t pay them to run one of his companies, so why would he pay them to run the country, I think the theory applies here too………

And so he didn’t; pay them that is. About 3 cents in the dollar in tax for Australia’s richest man, and he had the temerity to lecture on the point. Spivs, they all end up in a box one day.

Hmmm, there is also the saying of one late Mr. Packer, who announced to Government Officials that he wouldn’t pay them to run one of his companies, so why would he pay them to run the country, I think the theory applies here too………

Not much of an announcement, it was in last month’s budget, but it was so minor it barely rated a mention.
For more info go to page 102 of ACT budget paper 3:
http://www.treasury.act.gov.au/budget/budget_2009/files/paper3/09expini.pdf

With tongue firmly in cheek. Wouldn’t it be great if the public could decide the worth of individual members of the LA.

Hargreaves would have to pay us.

Of course this wasn’t the line run by either Mr Stanhope or any other MLA in 2005, when they gorged on a 15% pay rise – and no precedent was set then where it came to ACT Govt employees’ pay outcomes.

From recollection that increase was explained away as the “the outcome of an independent process”, with embarassed grins all round.

That seems like a modest raise, though I don’t see anything wrong with them being paid a lot less than Commonwealth MPs – each MP represents an electorate with a population about a third of that of the entire ACT.

and there’s the old saying that’s true – if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.

I’d nod to any payrise for anyone, including public servants, that is within the CPI. 1.5% is still quite modest. Okay, so there’s the special superannuation arrangement for 10yr+ in politics (e.g. Natasha gets $60,000 for the rest of her life) but meh, that’s compensation for being under constant public scrutiny.

Well this means that they can say as go the leaders so goes the troops when negotiations on pay rises over the next 3 years for ACT public servants come up later this year.

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