Do you think our politicians are paid too much and enjoy too many perks and luxuries at the taxpayers expense? Check out www.voteforsanegovernment.com to see someone who wants to get elected and cut their perks and put the money to better use.

Elected members should be volunteers, only bureaucrats should receive a salary, I'd have parliament sit for two weeks either side of June 30 to vote on budget measures and compensate them at a fixed daily rate in the manner of a Jury, all other business could be done via electronic media.
The job of MP's is to represent their electorate to the state and it's bureaucracy, in this day and age they could easily do that by spending all their time in their community and earning as much or as little as they wanted in private enterprise and if for some reason the community wanted to maintain them full time on a salary then they could sponsor them independently.

JOM, the year is 2013.

Now as for their pays, no, I dontt think they are ove paid, in fact, I think that if we truely want visionary leaders, we will have to pay more.

You see it stands to reason that if a barrister can earn upwards of a Million a year, and not have two thirds of the country hate him/her, why on earth would they choose politics for far far less.

Simple answer, they just didn't cut the mustard.

I say we need fewer politicians, pay them much better, and insist they carry professional indemnity insurance, so that if we had a repeat of the past six odd years, they would be sacked, and we would have our money back.

But, a the end of the day, you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

If Politicians were to be paid by merit most of them would starve.

turtletinman>> Do you think our politicians are paid too much<<

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah.What was the question again?

rehtcub>> But, a the end of the day, you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.<<

If thats the case Butch, bring on the monkeys.

I don't think they get paid enough to put up with all the vitriol levelled at them on a daily basis from their adoring public.

I agree with rehctub.
If we want better politicians, then maybe we should offer more money.
As it stands now, I wouldn't want to do their job if I was offered ten times their current salary!

NO But I do think they get far too much thrown at them.
I too doubt those doing the throwing are equipt to do that.
Yes we have duds we have dills but if we want to raise the standard we should raise the pay.
To levels they could earn outside the house.
As a safety thing how ever we should introduce laws that give mandatory prison terms and loss of all personal property.
For such ads the NSW filth.

NO But I do think they get far too much thrown at them.
I too doubt those doing the throwing are equipt to do that.
Yes we have duds we have dills but if we want to raise the standard we should raise the pay.
To levels they could earn outside the house.
As a safety thing how ever we should introduce laws that give mandatory prison terms and loss of all personal property.
For such as the NSW filth.

But, a the end of the day, you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
rehctub,
Well, seeing that we're talking about australian politicians then yes we do get monkeys considering that we're paying them with the South pacific Peso.

To the best of my recollection, Paul Hogan was the first to advance the argument of “if we offer more money, we might attract a best class of applicants”. That was in his second appearance on the Willesee Show, when he was trying to become a COMEDIAN.
Sadly, our pollies of course leapt onto the idea, and for the last few decades their pay increases have out paced average Australians' egregiously.
The result? We've never seen a more self-serving, out of touch, so called “Representatives” in the history of this country.
The experiment's been done. It didn't work. End it.
Here's a crazy idea: let's vote for people who's primary goal is to serve their country, rather than themselves.
Incidentally, I love it when politicians themselves advance this notion of "better pay, better pollies".
Does that mean the current bunch of under paid no hopers will stand down, in favour of these "better" ones?

As someone who has had contact with politicians and aspiring politicians from all sides of politics I have never met one who said "I'm in it for the money". That's not to say polys should not be adequately rewarded for their efforts. In general I find people who want to enter politics, from all sides, committed with a sense of civic duty.
If the remuneration is inadequate you do get two kinds of people, one those of lesser ability and two those of "independent" means, as was the case in Victorian England when politicians were not paid at all, and only the conservative landed gentry could afford to be in Parliament. If that was applied today we would have a hung parliament with Clive Palmer on one side of the chamber and Malcolm Turnbull on the other.

Paul,
I think we're in for a future of hung parliaments led by millionaires anyway, don't forget that the Rudd family are extremely wealthy too.
Potential candidates are definitely in it for the money in the sense that they make connections in Canberra which they can then use to enrich themselves after their term is up or they retire.
As for the British, how much money did Tony Blair make while in office, aside from his salary? Wasn't it in the order of 30 million pounds?

Butch,
Yes it is 2013 and we have skype and video conferencing technology which will be upgraded to high definition, lag free services in the next few years with the rollout of the NBN, there's no need for MP's to be in Canberra for even the amount of time they currnetly spend there, most of the debating and and committee work could be done online.
If it's good enough for the courts to use video links in the execution of their duties it should be so for parliamentary committees.
If people are genuinely interested in civic duty then they should be willing to do it for free or on a part time basis, like the CFA, St Johns Ambulance, SES etc.

The pay was less, but the quality of representatives was probably the same thirty or so years ago before the said politicians decided that as the 'masters', they shouldn't be paid less than their 'servants'.

Thereupon they benchmarked their pay against the pay for the Senior Executive Service (SES) of the federal public service. The SES is the cream of the cream of federal bureaucrats. Whether or not ordinary backbencehers deserved that remuneration is for others to judge.

Now of course the remuneration and allowances have progressed in leaps and bounds and arguably ahead of well ahead of inflation.

What is truly pathetic of the government and all federal politicians is that the retirement value of their own generous superannuation is tied to increases in average weekly earnings BUT the superannuation of public servants who are their employees is only adjusted against CPI. The government ignored an independent report recommending that the anomaly be fixed immediately.

So, unlike pollies's super, the value on retirement of the superannuation that public servants paid into compulsorily for their whole careers is constantly eroded. Not good when one remembers that the greatest bulk of public servants superannuation is not much advanced on the Age Pension, but they get none of the Age Pension benefits.

Rather obviously greed is stronger than principle and fair dealing where politicians are concerned. These are the people who say they are concerned about workers and some going even further to assert that they can be trusted to keep the political 'bastards' around them honest.

PM Rudd is paid more than US President Barack Obama, But Rudd and industrial lawyer and ex-PM Gillard before him treat their own employees most unfairly, welshing on public servants superannuation.

What was that again about higher pay and benefits ensuring better politicians?

The only reason anyone should get into politics is if they want to help people. You can help the most amount of people by making the whole country a better place. If you give our politicians large wages you'll just attract greedy people into those positions. I've waited my entire adult life for someone worthy of my vote. I've run out of patience and decided to run myself. The first thing I'll do if I'm elected is take a 10% pay cut. Find out what other things I want to do and change at www.voteforsanegovernment.com

For decades, all we have heard from politicians is that all pay rises should be linked to increases in productivity.
I would suggest the very purpose of Government is to nurture and hopefully increase the standard of living of all Australians.
The “productivity” of our representatives should be judged by increases in the median (not average) wage levels in their electorates.
When our income goes up, their income goes up.
Rightly or wrongly, we don't pay our politicians to be corporate executives or management. We have a public service to do the actual work. Our Reprepresentatives are there to dictate policy, and give the Public Service direction. We pay our politicians to be Representative, hence the name.
The only way our Reps can know what we are feeling is to live as we do, and to formulate policy based on those feelings.
To be truly representative, our Representatives should earn a representative wage.
As to linking competence to income levels, our PM gets more money than President Obama. Indeed, all White House staffers salaries, including top Presidential advisers, are capped at $172k; significantly less than an Aussie back bencher, and many times less than what they could make in the private sector.
If Americans can be motivated by something other than personal greed, why can't we?
(Mind you, their Congressmen and Senators are notoriously just as greedy as ours, even though not as well paid. Almost all still manage to get enormously rich during their tenure, somehow).
As to linking competence to income levels, our PM gets more money than President Obama. Indeed, all White House staffers salaries, including top Presidential advisers, are capped at $172k; significantly less than an Aussie back bencher, and many times less than what they could make in the private sector.
If Americans can be motivated by something other than personal greed, why can't we?
(Mind you, their Congressmen and Senators are notoriously just as greedy as ours, even though not as well paid. Almost all still manage to get enormously rich during their tenure, somehow).

Grim is right.

We didn't (and couldn't have afforded to) pay market wages to soldiers during World War II, but many volunteered anyway. If politicians aren't motivated by service to the community, then we are better off without them.

There is no point in having highly intelligent, talented people if they are only going to use their abilities to benefit themselves and their friends at the expense of the rest of society. Besides attracting greedy sociopaths, the high salaries also serve to coopt politicians who cannot be corrupted. They soon acquire large investments to protect, as well as expensive new hobbies and new friends, so that they cease to identify with the people who elected them.

There is no good evidence that higher salaries inhibit corruption, as can be seen from the case of Brazil.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/world/americas/public-rage-catching-up-with-brazils-congress.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

In fact, the high salaries make it easier to hide the proceeds of corruption.

I would like to see politicians paid enough money to do their jobs and live like most people in the community, with perhaps a bonus if they increase the real median income. Not paying them anything would mean that only the rich could serve. The politicians should also be periodically audited after they leave office to look for unexplained wealth.

So long as the electoral system remains as it is, politicians should nominate their own salary (+perks) before elections - whatever sum they like (probably CPI adjusted), then that sum will be printed on the ballot papers along the candidate names and the voter will take that into consideration.

Ideally, we should have a direct democracy with electronic votes and multi-level proxies. Obviously, most citizens have no time to vote on each and every issue, so they nominate a proxy (which they can change at any time). If they fail to vote by the deadline, then their proxy's vote is taken to represent them as well. If their proxy also fails to vote, then their proxy's proxy's vote is used, etc. Parliament will comprise of a fixed number of the "heaviest" proxys at any given point in time. Parliamentarians will debate, but the vote will be made by the people or their proxies.

Now paying politicians (if at all) will become a private arrangement between people and their proxies.

I have to say that in a way I think our politicians are not overpaid, but rather underpaid. Why? Because they do have a fulltime job and in comparison to what some managers, CEOs and bankers earn, their income is just a fraction. Plus, their comparably small income makes them prone to corruption. Of course however there is no guarantee that they would be less corrupt if they earned more since man is greedy but still... for all the responsibility they have and the fact that they work 24/7 I think they actually don't earn that much. Of course they enjoy lots of advantages like the power to decide things that matter, traveling a lot and being driven around in limousines - which I actually did once, too, on a business trip with https://www.blacklane.com/en/limousineservice and it was great - but I still feel that in comparison to other jibs politicians are underpaid.

I have to say that in a way I think our politicians are not overpaid, but rather underpaid. Why? Because they do have a fulltime job and in comparison to what some managers, CEOs and bankers earn, their income is just a fraction. Plus, their comparably small income makes them prone to corruption. Of course however there is no guarantee that they would be less corrupt if they earned more since man is greedy but still... for all the responsibility they have and the fact that they work 24/7 I think they actually don't earn that much. Of course they enjoy lots of advantages like the power to decide things that matter, traveling a lot and being driven around in limousines - which I actually did once, too, on a business trip with <a href="https://www.blacklane.com/en/limousineservice">http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5917&page=4</a> and it was great - but I still feel that in comparison to other jibs politicians are underpaid.

Maybe not over paid if they did a good job. Where in any other job can you not be held accountable for what you do. We are constantly being told we are accountable. May be they can be held accountable but usually after their term in office is served whereas we are accountable immediately and sacked. Furthermore in what other job can you continually lie to people and manipulate words etc and avoid coming out with straight answers. I' m very cynical, politics seem to attract the dishonest in society and we pay them for it. I know there are some genuine pollies out there, my apologies to painting them with the same brush and sincerely appreciate those with some morals and values.

grim/quote..<<..grin..[hogen's]..he was trying to become a COMEDIAN.
Sadly, our pollies of course leapt onto the idea, and for the last few decades their pay increases have out paced average Australians' egregiously.>>

yes the root cause of many problems
can be traced back to a joke

i notice..that..when the tongue..says an exaggeration..as if truth
the follow up usually is..'only joking'

but its beyond a joke
i feel po-lies..wage..should be linked to minimum wage increase
the poor working slobs..are trying to 'survive'..on

plus the pub-lick serve-vice bonus/pay rates..being indexed to po-lie pay rates..further sickens..any minimum wage casual working slob

qld polies try to get 45%,,thats sickening
made [aggravated.].by lazy bureaucracy pay/pension/super increases
of course the leeches are over paid

over bonus-ed
under accountable

<<The result? We've never seen a more self-serving, out of touch, so called “Representatives” in the history of this country>>

too right
im so over self serving trust fund generational autocrats..
free lunching as bureaucrats..voting for ever more blood from the taxed to death working class..krudd..called the voter/service fee levie fine minimum wage tax/payer..

who truelly 'saved'..us
not china..not the nminimg..not howard..not krudd
but the poor downtrodden..who bails out the rich..when proffit got privatized and cost/debt put on us

bah
the new way?
http://www.yourstrawman.com/