$160,000 ‘incentives, not bonuses’, says Australia Post chairman

Australia Post has denied paying its top executives ‘bonuses’ averaging more than $160,000.

Australia Post chairman Lucio Di Bartolomeo. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Australia Post has denied paying its top executives “bonuses” averaging more than $160,000.

Under questioning from Labor in Senate estimates on Tuesday, Australia Post chairman Lucio Di Bartolomeo defended average bonuses of $168,000 for employees earning between $300,000 and $400,000 a year.

“We certainly don’t see them as bonuses at all,” he said.

“Their contractual arrangements around remuneration provides two components of remuneration. One is fixed and … irrespective of performance and another part is payable subject to performance. Clearly, performance outcomes from year to year may well see different payments being made.”

Tasmanian Labor senator Anne Urquhart said the rise in some employees’ bonuses was six times the rate of inflation.

Mr Di Bartolomeo said this was because performance varied year to year, and those receiving such an increase had simply performed very well.

He said incentive payments were independently benchmarked against other industries and remuneration was set to attract “quality people”. “Our packages, generally speaking, lie in the bottom and second bottom quartile, generally below median, and certainly nowhere near above anyone’s median,” he said.

Financial Services Minister Jane Hume said Australia Post was expected to “follow principles outlined” by the government.

It follows revelations in Senate estimates in 2020 that former CEO Christine Holgate purchased four Cartier watches to the value of $20,000 for executives as a reward for closing an important deal.

As a result, Ms Holgate stood aside, but later alleged she was bullied and forced out. “I was humiliated and driven to despair. I was thrown under the bus so the chairman of Australia Post could curry favour with his political masters,” she said in April.

That followed Scott Morrison publicly criticising her purchase of the watches, telling parliament it “did not pass the pub test”.

Ms Holgate, who now heads up Global Express, in August received a $1m termination payment from Australia Post, which said it “regretted the difficult circumstances surrounding Ms Holgate’s departure”.