RBA boss blasts CEO salaries after Qantas boss Alan Joyce’s wage revealed

The obscene salaries of elites in the business community has prompted the central bank boss to question stagnant wage growth for regular Aussies.

Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce was laughing all the way to the bank last year. Picture: The Australian / Renee Nowytarger Sydney

The RBA governor has slammed the extraordinary salaries of Australia’s CEOs after it was revealed last week Qantas boss Alan Joyce pocketed a staggering $24 million last year.

Central bank boss Philip Lowe compared the absurd bonuses among the business community’s elite with the stagnant wage growth of regular Australians, which he said should be raised by more than 3 per cent.

RELATED: Qantas boss Alan Joyce tops list of Australia’s highest paid CEOs

“As a regular Australian, it disturbs me,” he said during his speech to the Armidale Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, according to the Financial Review.

“Some people who are paid extraordinarily high amounts of money and working Australians have relatively low wages and getting small wage increases, I think it’s an issue for society.”

RBA governor Dr Lowe says he’s disturbed by CEO salaries. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

Dr Lower pockets a base salary of $903,000 and said he rejected the chance of a performance-based salary structure.

He said CEOs shouldn’t be rewarded with an incentive for doing their job.

“I’ve got a flat salary and I say to my board, ‘Look, don’t consider performance because you know I’m going to work as hard for you and for the people who show up regardless’. Actually, I think a lot of people are like that,” the RBA boss said.

“I don’t need the incentives. My incentive is to do a good job for the people.”

Alan Joyce laughing all the way to the bank. Picture: The Australian/Renee Nowytarger Sydney

Alan Joyce’s $23,876,351 wage was the most of any CEO in the 2018 financial year according to analysis from the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI).

Macquarie Group CEO Nicholas Moore came second with a $23.86 million pay packet, while Michael Clarke from Treasury Wine Estates made $19,024,334.

The median pay enjoyed by ASX 100 CEOs was $4.5 million — a far cry from the country’s average full-time wage, which the Australian Bureau of Statistics places at $85,010.

The median bonus was $1.61 million, the second highest figure in the survey’s 18-year history, while 10 CEOs took home more than $10m in FY18.

“There is a mindset that says, we have to pay you five or 10 or $20 million so that you deliver value for the company. But that’s the mindset that many businesses have,” Dr Lowe said.

He said regular Australians would struggle to comprehend these staggering figures and called for the broader workforce to have “wage increases that start with a three (per cent)”.

The release of the wages last week prompted ACSI CEO Louise Davidson to slam the country’s “culture of entitlement” among CEOs.

“The way bonuses are being handed out suggests there is a culture of entitlement whereby supposedly ‘at-risk’ pay is not very risky at all,” she said, according to a release.

“These payments occurred in a year when the royal commission was in full swing, revealing evidence that executives were not being held accountable for poor conduct, and in the wake of soaring ‘first strike’ votes against remuneration reports.

“Clearly, corporate Australia is not getting the message that bonus payments should be variable and awarded for stretch performance, rather than being fixed pay under another name. This is a failure of both discipline and leadership.”

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Sally McManus also weighed in, tweeting: “Does anyone honestly think one person deserves $24mil/year when staff earn a fraction of this?”

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