Australia’s senior public servants are taking the piss.
Over recent years we have witnessed the obscene blow-out in their salaries, as exemplified by the RBA governor’s pay rising above $1 million. We have also seen some top bureaucrats’ pay soar by 70% since the global financial crisis, with the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet now earning an insane $861,700, and the head of the Australian Treasury paid $840,810, with other bureaucrats soon to join in the gravy train.
Now it has been revealed that senior public servants will escape the Turnbull Government’s wind-back of superannuation concessions. From The Canberra Times:
The wealthy elite of the Australian Public Service will keep nearly all their generous superannuation concessions under the Coalition’s long-awaited changes to super rules for high earners.
…financial advisor Daryl Dixon, whose firm has advised thousands of public servants on their retirement plans, says the changes revealed in draft legislation published last week leaves generous concessions for high-earning members of the public service “defined benefits” super funds almost intact.
Under the new rules, most workers receiving employer contributions of more than $25,000 per year will be hit with a penalty tax on the money, but those rules have not been brought into line with the public sector’s defined benefits schemes.
High-ranking public servants not only enjoy employer contributions of 15.4 per cent on their salaries, but they are nearly all in the coveted defined benefits schemes which have been closed to new members for more than 10 years.
The only loss this group faces, under Treasurer Scott Morrison’s draft legislation, is the ability to make tax-free contributions to a second super fund.
Genuine Budget reform is about shared sacrifice, but with those deriving the greatest benefits and most able to look after themselves bearing the largest burden. The generous pay rises given to senior APS bureaucrats, along with their overly generous superannuation arrangements, is contradictory to the “war on entitlements”. They should be leading by example, not burying their snouts in the trough as ordinary Australians take the pain.
