We’re not against pay rises for pollies; there’s inevitably an ugly populist streak in the argument. If politicians can successfully argue higher pay will attract better candidates, it’s money well spent.
But, Campbell Newman, you can’t take more from the till while sacking thousands of public servants, freezing the pay of those left and claiming your state is broke.
The Queensland Premier said last week he couldn’t help topping up pollies’ pay by up to $57,000 a year because of a legislative clause that state MPs must be paid just $500 less than their federal counterparts in Canberra. Unions, not surprisingly, led vocal protests yesterday.
We’ll defer to Bob of Atherton, who writes on The Courier-Mail‘s letters page today:
“They can easily turn around every other law in Parliament, so why can’t they change the law concerning politicians’ pay rises so that they don’t have to accept pay rises each year?
“This would allow them to lead the people into the reforms that we really need, in doing it by example instead of sacking people.”
You do have to wonder, Bob. Or as Annie of Balmoral writes:
“… does anyone wonder why politicians are so loathed these days regardless of what side of the fence they sit? Well, these recent antics do not help their cause one little bit.”
Quite, Annie. Quite.
Crikey is committed to hosting lively discussions. Help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming. We aim to publish comments quickly in the interest of promoting robust conversation, but we’re a small team and we deploy filters to protect against legal risk. Occasionally your comment may be held up while we review, but we’re working as fast as we can to keep the conversation rolling.
The Crikey comment section is members-only content. Please subscribe to leave a comment.
The Crikey comment section is members-only content. Please login to leave a comment.