What a big load of hogwash, that if we paid our policitians more we would get better quality people.

The so called better quality people that got us into the GFC,

http://www.theage.com.au/business/time-to-occupy-our-financial-hubs-20111010-1lgq9.html

Executive pay: the high cost of market failure

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/executive-pay-the-high-cost-of-market-failure-20111010-1lh2o.html#ixzz1aPoVMKwF

All that paying our politicans more will achieve, is that we will only attract more expensive crooks.

More productivity out of politicians, how does that work.

Pay peanuts get monkeys.

If all you've got is monkeys, all they deserve is peanuts.

It seems to me, from my observation that the bigger failure you are the better renumeration you get. A few years ago I attended my sons graduation at University. The guy handing out the Diplomas was given a rousing introduction speech & hailed as one of the great Hero's of the University. I knew the guy personally. He had been on the Boards of three Companies that had failed & thousands of people had lost their investments. So how does that work.

So, if we pay our politicians more, all the less-capable politicians will suddenly want to quit their jobs to make way for more competent people?
Pull the other one.

As far as Australia is concerned, paying our politicians more money, will just attract an even worse bunch of self-absorbed mugs than we already are right now- as the only difference of people we would be getting are people who are solely motivated by personal gain- only greedier.

The saying should instead read "If you pay MONKEYS, you get peanuts".

Daniel Bradley: If we made our politicians more efficient.

And just how do you portend to do that. I know..., have a Royal Commission.

If they were paid on their efficiency. The'd never get paid.

King Hazza: "If you pay MONKEYS, you get peanuts."

Spot on Hazza. The politicians Australia has had for the last 50 years have not been worth P!55!n @N.

We had better politicians in the 19th century, when they were paid nothing.

In addition, the current system gives us the wrong sort of politician, who moves from university to parliament, without seeing anything of real life. What we should be encouraging in politics is people who have had a successful career in society, who have retired on a good level of super, and who are looking to contribute their expertise to society.

There is one exception, which is why there should be some sort of payment, and that is the ability of a poor man to stand for parliament and represent his social group there.

However it follows logically that if the sole reason for payment of members is to allow a poor man to stand for parliament, his salary as a politician should be that of a poor man.

paying more often compromises character rather than enhances it. Paying more would not relieve Mr Rudd from his bitterness resulting in him undermining his leader at every turn. Paying more would not have stopped the PM from lying about the carbon tax in order to save her hide. Paying more would not deal with the arrogant pride which dismantled the Pacific deal which had stopped the boats and saved lives. Paying more would not have stopped the faceless men stabbing Mr Rudd in the back as this was a character not pay issue. Saying we now have monkeys is demeaning and untruthfull. Saying that we have a weak corrupt and sleazy Government unfortunately is closer to the mark. It is the cling for power that has corrupted causing independants to snub their electorates for their own little ideologies, keeping a totally rebellious Foreign Minister only because he would bring down the Government if disciplined and pandering to the socialist no matter how low one needs to scoop. More pay would not address any of these issues.

This is delusional thinking, to believe that higher pay means better quality people.

Personally I think we would all be better off, doing away with professional politicans and employing the average person off the street.

As always, the dimension that is totally ignored in all this is performance.

Until and unless we hold politicians responsible for their actions in Parliament, we will be held to ransom by the iniquitous system of patronage and skulduggery that we can see in operation every day.

A workable system should not be difficult to establish. Simply maintain a register of commitments made by politicians when they are schmoozing for our votes, and hold them to it.

If they want to vote in favour of something they had taken a stand against in their manifesto, their vote would be disallowed. Similarly, if they "change their mind" on an issue they supported pre-election, they would not be permitted to do so.

Anything that did not appear, would be "fair game".

After a couple of goes, we the electorate would get the hang of it, asking the probing questions before we go to the ballot box, instead of just whingeing for the next four years that they aren't doing what they promised. Or conversely are doing something, that they promised not to.

The next step would be the really interesting one. Linking pay to the actual performance against their commitments, giving them a specified amount of dollars for ever time they fulfilled their responsibility (once per policy only, of course). This would encourage them to maximize the number of policy "triggers" in their manifestos, and discourage them from omitting anything that they might be called on, to retain "flexibility".

Too simple?

Thought so.

Incidentally, I heard this gem over the weekend.

"In the US, you need to have millions of dollars in order to become a politician. In [my country], you become a politician in order to have millions of dollars"

Sadly, we in Australia are closer to the latter than to the former. If you disbelieve me, show me an ex-politician who is not well off.

The author makes some interesting points, and I applaud his courage in presenting an unpopular position. But on balance, I disagree with him.

It’s certainly true that senior politicians earn considerably less than business people and senior professionals with similar or lower levels of responsibility – for example, most ministers earn less than the heads of the departments they direct. But I have seldom met a politician of any party who was in it mainly for the money, and I think I prefer it that way. And there are senior people in other walks of life – for example, heads of many leading NGOs – who typically earn considerably less than politicians. Politicians deserve to make a living, and money is a motivator, but it’s not the only one, and I fear that if we made politics too lucrative a career it could have unintended consequences.

As other posters have pointed out, there is no clear link between the efficiency of politicians and how much we pay them. In the private sector, financial rewards are (at least in theory) roughly proportional to effectiveness and results. There is no such link between pay and performance in politics. The electorate which decides who to send to parliament tends to vote more at least as much on party as on performance, and has have no control over whether their member is PM or a backbencher. The PM who decides who gets what position is motivate by a range of factors besides putting the best candidate in the job.

Also, there is a danger in politicians’ lives becoming too far removed from the people they represent. Back becnchers’ minimum salaries are already about twice average full-time male earnings. We may not want “average” people running the country, but we want them to understand how their policies affect average people, and I’m not sure a cabinet comprising only people on $375,000+ would do that

The productivity line was in the byline which was written by the editor not the author. And you get higher productivity out of politicians by giving them larger electorates. The more electors a politician services the more productive they are.

Happy to take the blame, and the credit, for my own work.

I suspect that if you pay more all you will get is monkeys with a more discerning palate. It is not just about payment - it is about competence - our system is not designed to recruit competent people, it is designed to recruit people who have the capacity for political infighting to win pre-selection and then win a particular seat - the skills needed to do that are not the same as the skills that are needed to administer and run a government. Paul Keating was smart but not well educated - so when he became treasurer he sat down and listened and absorbed everything treasury was able to tell him about being a economics - his story is no different to that of many other politicians both past and present. Our present lot of politicians include some very well educated folk - Abbott has excellent academic credentials - yet he does not seem to apply these to his role as leader of the opposition - you can go through the whole parliament and come up with the same conclusion - lots of very smart people who seem to leave their brains on the plane when it comes to running the country. How often do we find that once they have left politics they come up with lots of clever ideas to improve the country just look at Fraser and Fisher. Money is not where the problem is - it is the way we elect politicians that demands a certain mindset, a certain person who is not necessarily also able to run the country.

Daniel Bradley,

I have known many politicians. I found them invariably keen to make the world a better place for me, so long as I did what they told me.

In pleading for a better wage for them, are you doing what they told you or are you thinking of a career in politics?

You might need to get out more, Rhian.

>>But I have seldom met a politician of any party who was in it mainly for the money...<<

Sorry, but with the sole exception of the already-super-rich, they are all looking at the financial rewards - not just now, but once they are out of parliament. They go on to attach themselves to company Boards like so many leeches, fly around on their golden tickets, become "lobbyists", wallow in their obscene pensions... and that's only the legitimate bits.

If they were sincerely indifferent to the cash, they would humbly accept that they are already overpaid for what they do, and simply buckle down to do a credible job for their constituents. But no, they keep coming back to the trough for more, more, more...

They're all just boils on the bum of democracy.

How much do we pay the children in our armed services, to risk their lives for their country?
Do we really want our political leaders to be more mercenary and less patriotic than the kids who are prepared to sacrifice their lives?
Parliament isn't called the 'House of Administration'. It's called the house of representatives, but who do they represent? In tax bracket terms, less than 5% of the nation.
These people are so disconnected from reality it's beyond unbelievable. To find out what "average" Australians are thinking, they have to commission studies -run by Uni graduates!
As to productivity, first we need to establish what it is exactly we want our representatives to produce.
I would think that should be bleeding obvious; a better life for all Australians and their children.
Therefore, politicians pay rises should be linked -DOLLAR for DOLLAR- to the median -NOT the average- wage.
In the USA, it is recognised that while the salaries of upper management and executives has skyrocketed, the median wage has dropped to 1990's levels.
In Australia, we never even hear the median wage mentioned.
If the last couple of decades have demonstrated anything, it should be this:
People who are really good at making big bucks, are really good at making big bucks.
For themselves.

Paying politician's like we do, just shows how much we value the position. Heads of Departments get more than the Ministers who they answer too.
We pay many of our sportsmen (though it seems not sportswomen)more than most politicians. Bank executives get millions for presiding over private companies. A geologist can get more than a backbencher as can many professional and contract positions.

Unless we value the position of PM and other political jobs, then who will want to go into them? And how can we complain about them...we, as a country, clearly do not value what they do.

My final point is that if you are so disappointed with the quality of politicians, then I suggest you go and stand for election yourself

Well you see, Phil Matimein, that's very much part of the problem.

>>My final point is that if you are so disappointed with the quality of politicians, then I suggest you go and stand for election yourself<<

You know perfectly well that to become a politician (as opposed to merely "standing for election") you have to be part of a Party machine. It's pretty much a closed shop, as you are either obliged to kick and scratch your way through the pre-selection system, or be already rich and influential - like a Malcolm Turnbull, for example.

It is the system that creates the candidates, and it is the system that ensures we get such low quality from which to make our "selection". The vast majority couldn't run a fish and chip shop. And those who can run a fish and chip shop...

Paying more isn't going to attract a better class of contender - it will still be the same old riff-raff, only they will be hungrier than ever to get their hands on the loot, and willing to take on all-comers along the way. If anything, it will increase, rather than decrease, the potential for corruption, with the objective that much more desirable.

"If anything, it will increase, rather than decrease, the potential for corruption, with the objective that much more desirable."
Exactly.
Politics is a gravy train, and always will be a gravy train until we all recognise that there are other compensations -particularly in public office!- than just money, or even that they are waited on hand and foot with toadies aplenty.
If egotism is mandatory, a good name in the history books should still be more important than a place at the trough.
Honour among thieves is largely a myth. The truth is, mercenaries are always for sale, to whomever offers the most money.

I like Pericles' idea:
I think a good addition would be to change advertising laws so that a political party will not be allowed to make any election-time adverts without explicitly outlining a commitment they will make if elected.
That way, they will have no choice but either make election promises, or simply get no screen-time when an election comes up (avoiding what happened last election where hardly any promises or stances were made, just mud slinging).
Aside from effectively forcing the parties further into a position of having pledges to be held to, would actually make election time adverts less of a waste of time (and money) to watch.

And I must say I even agree with Runner too on his points.

As the author, I don't propose to respond to each comment made, however I will make a couple of points.

Some point to the GFC as evidence that expensive executives can get things wrong, which in some cases is clearly correct. However it conveniently neglects the reality that the vast majority of high calibre senior executives are very decent and honourable people who steer their companies with great success. But let's not let the facts get in the way of a point.

Further, to argue that paying a high salary somehow corrupts the office by enticing financially motivated executives, rather than those with an innate desire to serve the greater good, is short-sighted. Yes, some will be attracted by the money. That's the point. And if they have the requisite skills and intelligence to add to the political landscape and steer the country, what's wrong with that?

Even with higher pay we will still have some duds. But it's likely they won't last, because of the deeper talent pool, and competition for fewer senior positions. I don't see how Australia can lose out of it.

The harsh reality is, that for as long as people react so vehemently against the idea of paying politicians generous and competitive salary related to the private sector, we will continue to attract a disproportionately high number of B-Graders to the world of politics.

Daniel your last point is of interest - you propose to link politician salaries to those in the private sector. The inference being that those salaries are commensurate to the sort of work that is being performed. Having worked with many very well paid CEOs my take is that it is the private sector salaries that are out of wack - instead of compounding the problem by increasing politician's wages we should be looking at ways of bringing all wages within some reasonable range. One way this can be achieved is through income tax - say a 90% tax on earnings over $500,000 pa would bring them back in the field.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12725#219859
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12725#219869
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12725#219873

Pericles, sometimes you seem honest, how did you get involved in loony left politics, the most evil system in the world?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12725#219876

daniel: spinspun, i accept your an honest person, genuinely believe it. i have heard the same argument many times before & could not disagree more.

i propose the exact opposite.

Our PM, GG, state governers all have a residence provided, not just a roof either but "full room & board". i suggest that all electorates could have a centrally located, catered residence & office. the local member could recieve NO cash salary at all. that is how it was, many of them were successful older businessmen, who had handed the day to day managment or CEO position over to their son & were now chairman of the board meeting once a month.

such a system would attract successful people who dont need any more money, even decent honest poor people could have a go & live a decent life, in the job.

i further suggest we could do the same with the entire bureaucrookracy, turn the "public sector" into a "national service" scheme in which young people after school could gain "work experience" in junior unskilled, sweep the floor, make the coffee type jobs, could be moved through all departments briefly to get a taste of working in a school, hospital, law court, public works, etc.

This brief taste could give them a much better idea of which "career" suits or enthuses them more. They could then begin a TAFE diploma apprenticeship, studying & working in the same area. Having successfully completed that & assuming they are still enjoying the work, they could move on to a university degree. EG, diploma justice studies, followed by a full university law degree, all free, in return for doing your national service. Another option could be that when qualified they could continue working part time public & part time paid private sector.

They might even decide to go into politics, knowing that they will continue to recieve "full room & board" with all the trimings, but no cash.

...Hey...why not force politicians to travel by donkey over back roads, row a boat overseas and fly "united". Just for starters! Wow...what a saving to taxpayers!

Problem also is that our greatest problem is attracting politicians with even the remotest inkling to actually do their jobs, rather than ride the gravy train.
Increasing the salary does no such thing- it just makes the gravy train more expensive for us, and further attracts the exact wrong kind of person to the office (and really, on what basis of logic do you assume that we are going to attract anything but a scrounger looking for easy money?)

Even looking at most of our business world, we are faced with overcharging monopolies, oligopolies etc that buy out easy targets (the public sector), raise the prices, and cry foul when merely the face of competition actually shows up and try to lobby to have them shut out (American businesses, or internet transactions). Come to think of it, many of our businesses are actually very poorly managed anyway. Who would we pick? Alan Moss? James Packer? Richard Pratt? Perhaps someone who works for Telstra?
Definitely not the kind of people I'd want to attract.

In fact, the only politicians who consistently prove they ARE in the job because they actually want to work on the nation (as opposed to get paid to sit on their arse, or try to use their privileges for tax breaks), consistently rejected pay rises or cash payouts.

A couple of points.
First, Parliament is about policy. We have a permanent public service to actually implement that policy.
Therefore comparing politicians to executives or CEOs is quite wrong. They should more accurately be compared to 'members of the board of directors'. Public service heads should be compared to execs.
By putting them on the same side of the fence as the executives, we clearly lose empathy for the 'shareholders'. This at the same time as actual shareholders of many large corporations are wondering why they pay their execs so much, particularly paying bonuses even when prices fall.
But most important is the fundamental difference between the Public/Private sector; the “Botany Bay” problem. In the private sector when things get rough there are always 2 clear solutions: increase productivity or cut costs. Almost always, the latter is the easier, and an Al Dunlap is brought in the cut out the deadwood.
It could be said the Nation of Australia was formed by the deadwood of merry old England.
We don't have that luxury (although it isn't impossible). We can't just sack half our workforce and write them off the books to make us 'leaner, meaner and more competitive'. We need far more innovative solutions. We need to think out of the box.
Our current crop of politicians, and the process that creates them are very much inside the box.

Neatly put, Grim.

>>...comparing politicians to executives or CEOs is quite wrong. They should more accurately be compared to 'members of the board of directors'<<

This error is a direct result of their having no business experience, and being therefore unable to differentiate between policy decisions, and executive decisions.

They believe themselves empowered to involve themselves in the process, which they don't fully understand. And also for which they don't possess the appropriate skills, thereby creating massive amounts of waste.

Sometimes, it is a miracle that anything at all is accomplished.

And sometimes, nothing IS accomplished. We have been waiting for a unified public transport ticketing system in NSW for well over a decade. Sources tell me that this is the direct result of politicians getting involved in the detail of implementation, as opposed to policy direction and oversight.

daniel: spinspun underlines the misunderstanding

>>Further, to argue that paying a high salary somehow corrupts the office by enticing financially motivated executives, rather than those with an innate desire to serve the greater good, is short-sighted<<

"Enticing financially motivated executives" does not necessarily corrupt the office, but nor is it the solution. The public service is the executive. Drawing politicians from the executive class is having a dog and barking yourself.

We need people who understand the responsibilities associated with policy-setting. We need them to be able to establish the parameters of those policies in the form of direction and goal-setting. And we need them to be able to articulate those goals to the public in their election campaigns.

Then, we-the-electorate hold them to their commitments.

Pericles - agreed up to a point. Politicians lack the business experience to implement - leave that to the public service...All in favour of a model that sees politicians and members of the board with a general role of directing policy and leaving implementation to the employees.
The one weakness in this model is highlighted by the insulation scheme.
Conceptually it was a good scheme but its implementation was flawed. I did not study the reasons for that - was it because of undue interference by the minister? Was it because unrealistic targets were being set? Or was it because the public service did not have the skills to ensure that the installation tender process weeded out the cowboys?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12725#219892
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12725#219902
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12725#219911
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12725#219915
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12725#219916

diver dan, King Hazza, Grim, Pericles & BAYGON, the REAL issue some of us have been hinting at, but skirting around is ACCOUNTABILITY.

it does not matter how much or how little any of them is being paid, if they are not ACCOUNTABLE.

electoral reform is needed to bring accountability back into politics.

Nailing them to their election promises is a good idea, no pay or public election funding from AEC until their promises are enacted.

PS, forgot the other idea i have believed in for ages.

Reducing the number of politicians, not by simply halving the number of federal pollies, but abolishing 1 of our 3 levels of government, or even 2 of them.

ALL 3 levels could be merged together, so that we have only 1 local member in a much smaller electorate, responsible for everything in their electorate, that is currently split 3 ways.

Election promises can only be enacted if a sociable opposition is in place. We operate on the westminster system of govt; and cannot be pushed around. The solution is a republic, and then we don't have to go by Englands rules. Do we want a republic may be a referendum at the next election.

Republic or not is a red herring. Like snag I am far more interested in major structural reform. The idea of replacing the three tiers of government with just one parliamentary system makes sense. One way this could be made to work is to identify what may be loosely referred to as 'communities of interest" Each of these small communities would elect a representative. In every instance the community would be responsible for the sort of services that government needs to provide to a community: health, education and social services. Where some of these services c an be best provided by working with other communities (eg hospitals) then the communities would pool their resources for those hospitals. Where we would need to cooperate on a national basis would be in the area of uniform rules and regulations. (Ever thought what a nightmare it is for a plumber operating out of Mildura - his market area covers NSW, SA and Victoria; each has very different standards - with really no apparent justification.)Once you confer that sort of responsibility on a representative; ie to ensure that the burdens and benefits of social cooperation are fairly distributed you can argue for giving that member a decent budget to ensure that s/he can discharge those duties. But at present our members are little more than over paid muppets with neither accountability or responsibility and of course the puppeteers are not ever held to account.

Well, as far as accountability, aside from the ideas Pericles mentioned, the ad-campaign restriction I mentioned, and my usual Citizen Initiated Referenda advocacy; the most obvious way to reorganize government is to abolish parliament and the GG office (both useless), and have each ministry a separate, directly-elected house. That is we vote for our President/Prime Minister, finance minister, foreign-affairs minister, immigration minister, education minister, industrial relations minister, health minister from separate pools of candidates.

This would leave only the actual ministries as the executive (Which they effectively already are minus obeying the same political party), and the Senate (we only need one house of review).

The positive is that a government can't simply be granted exclusive control of all ministries simply because they promised to stop boats arriving, or promised they wouldn't implement a GST- or simply promised they weren't Tony Abbot or Labor, respectively.

Each candidate would actually have to make a promise for their respective field and probably compare relevant credentials to get the job, while the rest of the prospective ministers are required to do the same.
So long as voters are free to mark only as much of their ministerial preferences as they personally care about, it would be a far more effective system.

forget citizen referenda - complex questions cannot be decided sensibly by a referendum - the most logical response will in most instance be to vote no for the yes vote opens up a can of worms of uncertainties. But why not go for a model like this instead - and use the carbon tax as an example. Those who oppose the proposed tax organize a petition against the tax - they need to collect at least a 1,000 signatures. Once they have their petition approved the chief justice impanels a jury and the politicians have a month to present their case in open court both for and against the tax. I have every confidence that a jury of 12 people will come up with the right decision. To those who argue that it is too complex for a jury decide I would simply say that since this is a decision that affects us all then the onus is on the politicians to present their case in terms we can all understand. If such a case were televised then people will be able to determine for themselves whether or not the arguments for or against stack up. Of course this is another example where we can show there is no need to increase payments to politicians simply work outg ways to make the system more accountable.

Name just one politician who you think is worth his/her pay ? I can mention hundreds of people who should get more & I know even more who should get less.

It is a matter of if you think you can do better , go and throw your hat in the ring. The political atmosphere is running red hot as a result of the hung parliament. 200 bills have passed parliament since the election. All you hear about is the back-bitchin going on. All in the name of democracy.

Good point 579 - by any standard this government is travelling pretty well; people may not like what they are doing but that is true for all governments. Abbott in collusion with the Murdoch press has been successful in creating the impression that the government is failing.
The crazy thing is that even if Abbott were to win it would not make a great deal of difference - a bit of fiddling at the edges is the most that any government can do. Hence to argue that people should get paid more does not make sense.
In passing the following may be relevant - a friend of mine was a member of the Liberals National Policy committee. He was offered a safe seat and declined. The money did not worry him - although he would have gone down in income that was not his concern. He simply pointed out that all you were there for was to make up the numbers and do as you were told. For him the deciding factor was that the policies he and his committee had sweated on were thrown out because they did not resonate with focus groups. He made the point that if he ran his company like the politicians ran their party he would have gone broke long ago. And these are the people who should be getting paid more?

That's no substitute for CIR BAYGON;

Your system restricts the 'case-making' to only politicians and the vote to only 12 random people;
CIR allows EVERYONE to present evidence, and allows EVERYONE to act as jurors- and there is no reason why only the people above should get an exclusive right to judge but not everyone else- when it is clear that everyone else is just as capable of making a decision- and being that both bodies are in a less controlled environment, are actually LESS prone to being manipulated as there is no monopoly on ideas (especially as politicians have numerous other agendas outside the issue which they stand to benefit from by skewing an issue a certain way).

Considering that our referenda result over our history (the few times we've been allowed to have them)- have been exceptionally sensible outcomes, based on quite sophisticated logic of the deeper implications of the system at large- often staunchly AGAINST popular media, celebrities and Politicians unless they actually agreed on the reasoning (the voting down the republic despite the overwhelming jingoism and media endorsement pushing for it)- the idea that 'people just get sucked into media when voting on a referendum' is a total fallacy.

Ah, KH, nothing like a bit of Athenian democracy. I've been advocating this for ages. With modern biometrics, even voting from home on your PC is no problem. However, there are significant difficulties in a modern age too.

If done well it could enable significantly enhanced participation, but if done badly, it could entrench a version of the Party system with the potential to undermine democracy.

It's a fun thought experiment, I have to say. How do you make such a thing workable?

go and throw your hat in the ring.
579,
You're not accepted if you're not ex Uni. Sad but true that so much talent is wasted because of that. We always complain about pollies not performing yet on the other hand we don't let competent people into politics. Yes you get monkeys if you pay peanuts but you get apes if you pay bananas.