Senator Jacqui Lambie will today introduce bills to cap salaries for senior bureaucrats and university Vice Chancellors at $430,000, just below what Treasurer Jim Chalmers takes home. Andrew Gardiner reports.
If there’s one topic guaranteed to generate suburban ire during tough times, it has to be: “fat cats getting cushy, well-paid jobs to do sweet FA”. The latest lightning rod for this popular vexation is none other than Bill Shorten, who, come March, will be earning over a quarter of a million dollars more as Vice Chancellor at the University of Canberra (UC) than he would have as Prime Minister, the job he missed out on at the “unlosable election” of 2019.
In fairness to the retiring NDIS minister, Shorten actually asked for less money than the current UC Vice Chancellor; his $860,000 per year is well below the seven-figure average at that level of academia. For that sum, he will be (among other things) “a networker and campaigner (who) promotes the University and develops productive and beneficial relationships with government, industry and community.”
Bill Shorten has weighed into the Uni Vice Chancellor’s salary debate using the ‘Goldilocks principle’. $1M+ is too much, Jacqui Lambie’s $430K cap is too little, but $850K is just right. He thinks the wage he’s got is “excellent”, but offers little justification for it 🤷♂️#auspol pic.twitter.com/Cos86I1mnK
— Rex Patrick (@MrRexPatrick) February 3, 2025
That’s the kind of gig that generates anger at kitchen tables, and who better to speak for the suburbs than Senator Jacqui Lambie? “Vice Chancellors are paid by the Federal Government, but the spend is overseen by the states – they don’t care because it’s not their money!”
“To add insult to injury, these huge salaries are being paid at the top of an industry that’s engaged in massive wage theft from poorly paid staff who actually teach students,” she added.
“We need a big stick, a federal law to significantly cut and cap the salaries of vice-chancellors, rather than a powerless advisory body (with no legislation or enforcement) which the government wants.”
Academics strike as wage theft spreads, uni executive salaries soar
Today in Parliament, Senator Lambie will introduce two bills aimed not just at academic salaries but at what she calls “the obscene entitlement” at the top of our federal bureaucracy. “I’m still fuming that someone like Catherine Campbell got a nearly million-dollar gig after she presided over Robodebt,” Lambie told MWM.
Two amendment bills
The Remuneration Tribunal Amendment Bill (aimed at senior public servants) and the Tertiary Education Legislation Amendment (for the academics) are right up Lambie’s alley, addressing hot-button issues for struggling families and giving her the chance to vent – as only she can – on the Senate floor.
It’s good politics for both Lambie and smaller players on the Senate cross-bench, but can it get up?
Lambie’s point is clear. Australia’s top public servants and military officers are among the highest-paid in the world, taking home salaries much higher than in the United States.
Take the new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. His responsibilities dwarf those of our Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary, Jan Adams, but his salary is capped at just US$400,000 ($635,000), while Adams pocketed a cool $1,025,301 in 2023-24.
Lambie told MWM., “Departmental Secretaries have important responsibilities, and their pay should be appropriate to ensure those positions are competitively filled by capable people, but
the present levels of pay at the top of the bureaucratic and academic trees don’t pass the pub test.
Senior salaries out of control
Adding to that consternation is the often-yawning gap between government ministers and unelected department heads or senior academics (see table above).
“The Remuneration Tribunal (which decides public service wages) has simply let these salaries run away, and Senator Lambie’s bill seeks to remedy that,” former Senator Rex Patrick, who is running for election again this year, pointed out.
“As for senior academics, the university boards who fork out these seven-figure packages are either oblivious to, or have no regard for, the struggles of ordinary Australians and don’t have to answer to anyone,” he added. “After all, it’s just taxpayer’s money.”
The bill targeting academic salaries amends existing legislation to set a statutory limit of $430,000 for Vice Chancellors, ensuring compliance by allowing the relevant agency to obtain Vice-Chancellor salary details.
An explanatory memorandum for the bill covering senior public servants also outlines a remuneration cap of $430,000. “Any variation from that limit will be a direct political responsibility of the government of the day and will be subject to parliamentary disallowance.”
MWM contacted both Universities Australia (formerly the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee) and the Remuneration Tribunal in Canberra for a response to Senator Lambie’s comments, but neither had replied by deadline.
Forcing a Senate Inquiry?
Former Senator and South Australia candidate for the Lambie Network at the forthcoming election says, “The bills will be popular in the wider community, and this may lead to a Senate Inquiry, with Vice-Chancellors and senior bureaucrats called to justify their salaries and explain just what it is they do to earn them. It will be a case of ‘you bring the popcorn, and I’ll bring the choc tops’,” he chuckled.
Private member’s bills like these rarely make it through both houses of Parliament and into law, and this pair must run the gauntlet of both major parties (55 Senators out of 76), many of whose alumni wind up in the very same cushy, taxpayer-funded jobs that so irk Australians. One insider told MWM:
They probably won’t get up, but they’ll cause a lot of discomfort in the process.
The tabling of these bills comes as Labor and the LNP look at ‘electoral reform’ legislation described as a “major party stitch-up” which threatens the political futures of independents and minor parties.
An $800,000 cap on spending per lower house electorate would harm both current and prospective cross-benchers, the latter needing to spend big to raise their profiles. Donations or gifts from an individual would be capped at $20,000 per candidate for independents or per state division for parties.
“If it gets up, there will be fewer private members bills like Lambie’s, less diversity and hardly any voices of dissent,” the insider lamented. “At this point in its history, Australia desperately needs dissent.”
An Adelaide-based graduate in Media Studies, with a Masters in Social Policy, I was an editor who covered current affairs, local government and sports for various publications before deciding on a change-of-vocation in 2002.