Pay soars for Turnbull, Shorten staff

The pay of taxpayer-funded staff in Malcolm Turnbull’s and Bill Shorten’s offices has surged 32 per cent.

Deputy PM Michael McCormack, PM Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop at a Cabinet meeting at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Kym Smith

The total pay of taxpayer-funded political staff in Malcolm Turnbull’s and Bill Shorten’s offices has surged 32 per cent over two years to $21 million, almost seven times private-sector wage growth over the same period.

Average pay, including 15.4 per cent superannuation and various cash allowances, of the Prime Minister’s 58 ministerial and electorate personnel leapt to $233,000 in the 2017 financial year compared with $177,000 two years earlier — the last year of the Abbott government.

Private and public sector wages grew 3.8 per cent and 4.8 per cent, respectively, over the same period.

The total pay for the Opposition Leader’s 39-strong team jumped 34 per cent to $7.5m or $193,000 a person, according to new figures obtained under Freedom of Information laws following a six-month delay.

The number of personal staff numbers were unchanged, according to documents tabled in parliament, but all staff have since received a 2 per cent pay rise, with a further 2 per cent due next year.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office said the salary of the previous chief of staff, Drew Clark, who had “come across” on his previous salary as head of the Department of Communications, had inflated the figures. Departmental secretaries earn between $693,000 and $879,000. The new chief of staff, Peter Woolcott, is paid less.

“Data provided by the Department of Finance so far for the 2018 financial year show that Prime Minister’s Office costs have come down compared to the previous year,” the spokesman said. These equivalent costs were $5.8m for the six months to last December. He also said changes to the “cabinet office” structure had ­raised pay costs since 2015.

Labor declined to comment.

Across Australia, average, full-time earnings rose 2.2 per cent to $84,860 over the year to November.

Last June the Trudeau government in Canada revealed fewer than 10 of its ministerial staff earned more than $C150,000. ($152,000). Under previous prime minister Stephen Harper the ­majority of advisers were believed to have been paid about $C100,000, with about 12 “director-level” staff receiving $C150,000. British Prime Minister Theresa May’s two highest paid advisers earned £140,000 ($250,000) last year.

Stripping out lower-paid electorate staff, who earn about $100,000 a year, in Mr Turnbull’s and Mr Shorten’s offices in Edgecliff, Sydney, and Moonee Ponds, Melbourne, the new figures suggest average remuneration in the nation’s two largest political offices, excluding travel allowances, was $245,000 and $207,000 last financial year. The government stopped publishing the Members of Parliament Staff Act 1984 annual report in 2013. It had detailed the aggregate costs of ministerial staff.

This act, which governs pay and conditions for political advisers, provides for remuneration up to $320,000 a year plus 15.4 per cent super and travel allowance for the 540 ministerial staff across government, opposition and minor parties, across a range of classifications from assistant to senior and principal adviser.

The Australian understands, for instance, a 21-year old “innovation adviser” in Employment Minister Michaelia Cash’s office earns about $130,000 a year.

The new pay figures exclude travel expenses. In December The Australian revealed travel costs across the two major political offices had soared 75 per cent to $12,660 a day over the same two-year period to June 2017. Among these expenses, untaxed “travel allowance” — paid regardless of actual costs incurred — rose 149 per cent to about $22,000 a year per staff member.