Anthony Albanese has been grilled about his salary ahead of his payrise on Monday.
The Prime Minister’s salary will tick over $600,000 , reaching a new height for our elected leader’s pay packet.
He was questioned about the salary, which is about nine times the median Australian wage, while on Sunrise on Saturday morning.
“Prime Minister Monday not a bad day to be leading the country either,” host Matt Doran said.
“Your your salary, you’ll enjoy a pay rise, earning more than $600,000 a year. Given what Australians are going through, do you think that passes the pub test?”
“I recognise I’m really well off,” the Prime Minister said, adding it was an independent tribunal which set politicians’ wages.
“That’s why we made the decision to intervene in the tax cut, so that both you and I had our tax cut in half, so that people who are low and middle income earners didn’t miss out, people who are earning under $45,000.”
From Monday, Australians will pocket between $350 and $4500 in extra cash each year depending on their income bracket as part of the tax changes.
In June the independent Remuneration Tribunal announced a 3.5 per cent wage rise for federal MPs.
The Prime Minister’s salary goes up more than $20,000 under the change, to $607,471.
Australia’s highest paid chief executive is paid more 50 times more than the Prime Minister: Macquarie Group chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake was reportedly paid $30.4m last year.
The largest bank chief executive pay packet was CBA boss Matt Comyn with $7.3m. That sum made Mr Comyn the 19th highest paid chief executive in Australia, according to the Australian Financial Review, OpenDirector and global search firm Odgers Berndtson.