Australia’s public service has its first million-dollar man after Glyn Davis, secretary of Anthony Albanese’s Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, received a massive pay rise.
Davis, who recently wrote a book about having a moral responsibility toward the underdog, got a raise of $34,202, bringing his salary to $1,011,402, 66 percent higher than Anthony’s new pre-tax pay. Albanese of $607,500.
It is not just Mr. Davis, 64, who earns more than Mr. Albanese. At least six other public servants are also approaching the exclusive million-dollar-a-year club.
Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy will receive a pay increase of $33,347, up to $986,117, while secretaries of departments such as Attorney General, Defense, Education, Finance and Home Affairs will receive a pay increase of $32,492, up to $960,832. .
Prior to working for Albanese, Davis was chief executive of the Paul Ramsay Foundation, Australia’s largest charitable foundation, and former president of Opera Australia.
Australia’s public service now has its first million-dollar man after Glyn Davis (pictured), secretary of Anthony Albanese’s Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, received a huge pay rise.
In Mr Davis’s 2021 book, On the Lottery of Life, he wrote: “We like to think of Australia as the land of ‘fair go’, a land of choice and equal opportunity.
‘But behind the façade of meritocracy lies an uncomfortable truth: much of your life is already decided by the lottery of where you are born and who you are born with.
“Engrained intergenerational poverty, like the property of the wealthy, can be passed down from parents to children.”
After attending secondary school at Catholic Marist Brothers College in the southern Sydney suburb of Kogarah, Mr Davis studied political science at UNSW and did a PhD at the Australian National University, where his thesis covered on the political independence of the ABC.
He spent almost 14 years as chancellor of the University of Melbourne and as a professor of political science.
Davis, who is married to Margaret Gardner, the governor of Victoria, also previously worked for other Labor governments, both federal and state.
He was Commissioner for Public Sector Fairness from 1990 to 1993 under the government of Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, and served as director-general of the Cabinet Office from 1995 to 1996 under the government of Queensland Premier Wayne Goss.
Davis subsequently worked as director general of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet under Peter Beattie from 1998 to 2002.
Salaries for federal department secretaries, decided by the Remuneration Tribunal, range from approximately $800,000 to just over $1,000,000.
By comparison, the average ASX 200 chief executive salary rose 15 per cent to $1.14 million in the 2022-23 financial year – and that was before the often very lucrative bonuses were added.
To get the most capable people to lead federal government departments, some of which have thousands of employees, the public service has to offer salaries that are at least close to what candidates could earn in the private sector.
Kirstin Ferguson, former deputy chairwoman of the ABC, said senior civil servants have “big responsibilities”.
“We must do everything we can to attract, hire and retain the best possible leaders and focus on the value they provide,” he wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald.
“To achieve this, we must pay our public servants and CEOs in proportion to the heavy responsibilities they shoulder.”
But while the CEO of a commercial company can be judged by a company’s sales figures or share price, there are no comparable comments from investors about those who run government departments.
It is only when a department is embroiled in scandal that most people find out who its director is, such as when Kathryn Campbell quit her $900,000-a-year job in the fallout from the robodebt royal commission.
Campbell, who oversaw implementation of the illegal income-averaging plan as secretary of the Department of Human Services, was removed from her defense advisory position just three days after Commissioner Catherine Holmes’ report was filed.
In its statement on the latest pay rises, the Remuneration Tribunal said the increases it “awarded to offices in its jurisdiction over the last decade have been modest”.
Anthony Albanese’s (pictured) new pre-tax pay is $607,500, far less than the $1 million his department head makes.
‘Including the current decision, the cumulative total of remuneration increases awarded by the court since 2015 amounts to 18.25 per cent.
“In contrast, overall pay increases in the public and private sectors… have amounted to 24.4 percent.”
The court did not increase the salaries of politicians and public servants during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, which followed four consecutive years of 2 percent increases.
The new pay rise was designed to allow for “competitive and equitable” salaries that are “appropriate to the responsibilities and experience” required in public office, and to attract “persons of caliber,” the court said.