Lowest paid workers get $21 while public servants get $1400
The country’s lowest paid workers will take home an extra $21 a week but it may be small comfort when they see how much Kevin Rudd has awarded his top public servants – a whopping $1400 a week.
The pay umpire has granted minimum wage earners an extra $21.66 per week, $5 less than unions were asking for.
On the same day the rise was announced, it was revealed that the Prime Minister had signed off on a 18.9 per cent pay rise for the secretaries of all 19 government departments, taking the packages for the highest paid public servants from $410,890 to $488,557.
Just months ago, Mr Rudd urged politicians to show restraint on their own pay levels as an example to the community to keep inflation pressure down.
“We need to be able to face the Australian community in the eye and say that we in the privileged position of this place are doing one small bit when it comes to exercising some wage restraint on our part,” he said in February. (news)
