It is never time for a politicians’ pay rise. The 17 Members of the ACT Legislative Assembly must be a tad embarrassed about the timing of the latest pay rise for them and for the top echelon of the ACT Public Service and statutory office-holders, particularly as the matter is virtually beyond their control. The Remuneration Tribunal recommendations are not subject to disallowance in the Assembly. To prevent the pay rise would require retrospective repeal of the legislation that put MLAs’ pay rises into the hands of an independent tribunal — though admittedly one of the 17, Green MLA Kerrie Tucker, has called for that approach.
The timing is bad because it comes a few days before the ACT Budget is to be brought down, in which, no doubt, the Government will be urging costs savings and efficiencies all round. Further, it comes at a time when the Health Minister, Independent Michael Moore, is negotiating an agreement with visiting medical officers which he hopes will result in pay cuts. In public perception it looks bad because he has already had a huge pay rise when he joined the Ministry, something quite extraordinary for an Independent and something those who voted for him might feel cheated about, the more so because if Mr Moore does not stand again, they may not get to exercise electoral disapproval. His family has also had an extra income boost with the employment of his wife in his ministerial office.
Those matters are undeniable and it makes the task of arguing in favour of the pay rises that much more difficult.
There is a case for pay rises, but it is not the one that the MLAs have argued before the tribunal. They have argued a parity argument. They say they deserve more because other state and territory parliamentarians get more. For a start ACT politicians do not have to leave home, unlike a large number of politicians elsewhere.
Another argument used for politicians getting more money than comparable others in industry is that they are susceptible to being thrown out every few years. The argument has little merit these days. Indeed, a guaranteed three years in the case of the ACT looks like great security in these grim days of ubiquitous down-sizing. Moreover, facing the electorate should be no more onerous than the “”performance indicators” that are imposed routinely in both the public and private sector.
A better argument is that we need to pay more to get the best possible people in the Assembly. It would be a fair question to ask how many existing members would be able to earn their new rates in the world outside.
The trouble with present salaries, even after the rise, is that they are too mediocre. They should either be higher to attract the sort of people who can attract high salaries outside, or perhaps they should be substantially lowered, so that we get more public-spirited people for whom money is not an issue.
Perhaps, even, we could have a mix of paying an non-paying positions in the Assembly.
One of the difficulties with the ACT position is that MLAs, Ministers and the Chief Minister started from a low base in 1989. Later attempts to lift the pay level when expressed in percentage terms look large when compared to the sort of pay rises granted elsewhere in the community. It is better to ignore the percentage. Chief Minister Kate Carnell’s new pay rate of $131,500 is not too much for the job she is doing. The job is incessant, the work unrelenting and it is under the public spotlight. The Chief Minister is responsible for a budget of $1.2 billion and an economy the same size as that of Tasmania. And part of the salary has to be spent directly on the job.
If we pay too badly, it means fewer good people will aspire to election and in the absence of good people jostling for a role both within the major parties to keep sitting members on their toes.
This pay rise is acceptable not because of the rewards it proposes for present MLAs, but in the hope that by next election the rewards on offer will be sufficient to attract a range of professional, business and trades people who might otherwise shy from the prospect.