Head to Head does Councillors’ income

This week’s topic: That City Councillors should be paid a living, full time wage

Peter Whitehead
What rich bastards reckon they are not?

Now, we know our Clover foregoes a Lord Mayoral stipend well north of $100k to make do on her State backbencher’s wage. But what of the nine others helping to manage Council’s $350 million budget and oversee 1,600 staff [not to mention private contractors and consultants]?

In May, the revamped Councillors’ Expenses Policy decreed “having regard to the Local Government Remuneration Tribunal’s determination of a fee range for Councillors and the Lord Mayor, Council shall always pay the maximum fees as determined by the Tribunal”.

That means a base wage of $30,240 before our deserving poor begin collecting expenses of up to $1k for attending dinners, $2k for carers’ fees, $3k for local transport, $4k for communications [blackberries, iphones, whatever], $5k for seminars and conferences intrastate or interstate, $10k for relevant training, oh, and $1500 for postage, a couple of newspapers each day, an office in Town Hall, a parking space, twenty hours of support staffing per week, council rooms for non-political meetings, access to facilities for entertaining, fully stocked fridge, a briefcase up to the value of $300, a car and driver for running council errands etc. etc….. Not bad provisions for a part-time job.

If we paid them more we might be reluctant to have more councillors, representing wards, as we were promised in Ms. Moore’s initial campaign, before incumbency reconfigured her views on democracy. Three councillors from five wards would give us 15 for 150,000 residents. Not too many in a city of diverse communities – never villages – where the unrealistic expectation that councillors be across the issues of the whole City makes us all vulnerable to the peculiar obsessions of well-organised complainers.

Higher pay is unlikely to attract better councillors. A full-time position with commensurate salary will have ambitious ALParatchiks looking to plump their bank accounts and CVs swarming towards City Hall. Liberal Party pre-selection will become a bloodier bath. Independent self-funded retirees [with apologies to Councillor Kok] will be trampled in stampedes. The Greens will germinate.
Besides, what monetary reward could surpass the pleasures of serving our community?

Andrew Woodhouse

Councillors get what they deserve.

As recently reported in this paper – the only paper ever to drill down to paydirt – they get free offices, $9,000 communication and conference costs, a $3,000 grog allowance, $3,000 for parties, dinners and babysitters, $2,500 postage and transport, great holiday leave, free laptops, a $30K salary and of course, their $300 ‘briefcase allowance’ to keep all the loot in.

Total: about $50K. Clover Moore rolls in clover, getting much, much more and, since May 11, her side-kick, Marcelle Hoff, gets a car, driver and two full-time staff costing $250K.

They’re all completely unaccountable for their hours. Some, like Councillor Maxwell Shayne Mallard, or Max to his mates, often arrive at meetings without reading background notes. Others, like former Councillor, Verity Firth, often never arrived at all. Most receive more money. Cr Burgmann receives her state government pension. Clover gets an MP’s salary, franked over to registered charities, providing handy tax deductions I believe, and extra MP allowances and even more staff. Robert Kok wallows within legal labyrinths and Max Mallard refines his image in the PR industry of course, what else?

They should be treated the same as all other Council staff, clocking on and off each time they start and stop work, with their time sheets publicly posted on Council’s website.

Corporate wage parity is difficult to estimate since their hours are unknown. However, reliable figures suggest they’re massively underpaid. Even Council’s hard-working CEO receives four-five times as much. But overpaying them won’t work. We’ll just get the bludgers we deserve.

Quadrupling their salaries is OK, but with one crucial caveat. Let’s deduct the costs of all the mayhem and misery they’ve caused. Every DA they’ve approved that’s reduced property values because of a new pub, losses of amenity or increased noise, are all calculable. So money can be surreptitiously siphoned from their bank accounts overnight. I’m talking B-pay here. Now you see it, now you don’t.

The result? They get $50K, not a cent more, their current compensation.
Who said there’s no wage justice?