The pay packets for the chairmen of Wesfarmers, Woodside Petroleum, QBE, Telstra and BHP are eclipsed by directors at smaller mining and technology companies who receive share and option-fuelled packages despite warnings from corporate governance experts.

The country’s highest-paid director in 2021-22 was Michael Blakiston, a partner in law firm Gilbert + Tobin’s energy and resources group in Perth who was a director at BCI Minerals and chairs exploration company Develop Global and last year received $3.76 million. His pay packet, as noted in Global’s annual report, was $116,722 in cash but more than $3.6 million in options for the chairman role.