I’ve never been driven much by money. From an early age it was drummed into me by my parents and my Jesuit school that you should contribute to society and try to serve the public interest truthfully and faithfully. For most of my working life I’ve been on regulated pay, as a university employee or public servant, where you’re paid the stipulated award rate and that’s it. I’ve also done a lot of work on wages policy over the years, where you might be talking about wage increases for average workers of 3 or 4 per cent.

My foray into executive remuneration, when I was part of a Productivity Commission (PC) inquiry in 2009, opened my eyes to a completely different world. The PC inquiry came about because of widespread concern that executive packages had got out of hand. The growing gap between executive and worker pay, some huge termination payments to departing CEOs, and mounting evidence overseas that executive remuneration structures and incentives had contributed to the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC), meant that the Rudd government was keen to look into the issue.