Editors note: Due to technical issues yesterday that prevented our articles from being viewed by most of our audience I have made the decision to republish them today.
Celebrities relaxing in their hot tubs in their multi-million-dollar mansions. Publicly-funded journalists at the national broadcaster. Politicians with eye-watering allowances. For us ordinary working stiffs slogging through the Xi Plague and its associated disruptions, being hectored to “stay home” by people with guaranteed jobs, income and luxurious digs is more than a bit galling.
“We are all in this together” is the mantra, but some of us seem to be in it a lot deeper than others.
Sometimes, the elite gets it, as did the Royal Family during the War, who made sure to be seen to be shouldering the burden alongside London’s East End. Some of today’s elite get it, too. AFL players are taking a pay cut. Sure, it might be symbolic, but at least they’ve got the memo.
Queensland’s public service most certainly didn’t, as they voted to award themselves generous pay increases just when so many others are seeing their jobs and businesses crash and burn overnight. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk only realised at the last minute what a bad look that would be and put the rise “on hold”.
So far, the nation’s politicians are resisting even the same token sacrifice as our footballers.
Federal politicians, senior public servants, judges and ministerial staffers are already set to have their pay frozen until the pandemic lifts following an intervention by Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, but calls are growing for a cut in MPs’ salaries.
The Prime Minister said on Tuesday that the federal government would have to find ways of paying for his COVID-19 economic rescue packages — totalling more than $200bn in fiscal terms — and that a pay freeze was the best option for MPs.
“We have given great consideration to the capacity of the commonwealth to support the announcements that we have made,” he said. “We have put the freezes in place.”
A pay freeze is all well and good, but merely passing on giving yourselves more money doesn’t have quite the same “we’re in this together” vibe as actually pulling their snouts out of the trough even just a little. Some of them, though, seem to get it.
Both Coalition and Labor MPs told The Australian on Thursday that a pay cut would have to be revisited in coming months, to show politicians felt the pain of an economically ravaged electorate.
“There will be an appropriate time to revisit politicians’ pay and I imagine that would be in the budget … there will need to be tough measures to pay for these rescue packages and to show we all have shared pain,” one Liberal MP said.
Former workplace relations minister Eric Abetz — who froze politicians’ pay when he served Tony Abbott in 2015 — said pay cuts for MPs would need to be considered.
The last political leader to really stump up the goods on cutting politicians’ pay and perks was Mark Latham, as Labor opposition leader. In 2004, Latham put through a bill that drastically reduced federal politicians’ pensions – including his own. In 2005, he retired on a still-generous pension – but if he had held out just one day more, it would have been considerably higher.
It remains to be seen whether the current crop of federal politicians show anything near even that level of fortitude.
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