Mike Baird boosts public trust in banking with massive payoff

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Recall:

NSW Premier Mike Baird announced he will retire from politics to give a new premier a clear run at the 2019 state election.

At a press conference in Sydney on Thursday morning Mr Baird said the state’s politics needed a refresh before the 2019 state election.

“The refresh won’t include me.”

He said he was retiring for two reasons. Firstly, he would soon mark 10 years in public life and did not want to be a career politician, and secondly because his parents and sister, Julia Baird, a writer, had serious health problems.

Then, one month later:

Former New South Wales premier Mike Baird has been appointed chief customer officer at NAB after his surprise retirement from politics last month.

Before entering politics in 2007 Mr Baird spent 17 years working in corporate and institutional banking roles in Australian and overseas with NAB, Deutsche Bank and HSBC.

The 48-year old had been Liberal premier since April 2014 and said when he retired that he wanted to spend time with his family and to help his parents and sister through “serious health challenges”.

And today:

Former NSW premier Mike Baird was paid almost $900,000 for his first five months as the head of National Australia Bank’s institutional banking.

NAB’s annual report for the year to September 30 shows Mr Baird, who took up his role on April 21, received total remuneration of $886,845, including $763,520 of cash in salary and short-term incentives. This is more than double the $387,600 the NSW premier is paid.

If the same remuneration was annualised, this would equate to $2.1 million.

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Way to boost public trust, Mike.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.