Do you know which political leader of the world get highest salary? No one can hold a candle to Singapore, the tiny island nation which believes in rewarding its public servants big time.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong earns the equivalent of A$3.8 million (T$7.6m) a year. That’s six times more than Barack Obama will earn when he takes office in the United States this month, nine times more than Britain’s Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and almost 12 times Australia’s Kevin Rudd.
The US evidently sees little need to offer massive financial rewards to its president, who usually has to be a multi-millionaire to run for office in the first place.
The president’s A$597,000 pay cheque is skimpy considering he is running the world’s biggest economy, and it was half that until 2001. Some presidents, including John F. Kennedy and George Washington, have been sufficiently wealthy not to require a cent of it.
Federal backbenchers also earn a couple of thousand dollars less than those in Barnett’s economic boom state. Nathan Rees, leader of Australia’s largest state, earns less than three other premiers - Barnett, Anna Bligh in Queensland and Mike Rann in SA.
MPs do okay, earning twice the average weekly wage. But WA federal MP Wilson Tuckey believes politicians are worth A$100,000 more, saying: “If you pay peanuts you get monkeys.”
Remuneration Tribunal president John Conde agrees with him.
Conde said that in the late 1960s a federal Cabinet minister was paid around the same as a secretary of a government department. Yet a Cabinet minister now is on A$219,000 while the salary of a lower-level departmental secretary is A$365,000.
This year the Rudd Government cancelled the tribunal’s recommendation that MPs get a 4.3 per cent pay rise, saying parliamentarians should show wage restraint as an example to the community. Salaries of political leaders don’t take into account things like travel, accommodation, electorate and living expenses, but some could be earning 10 times more in the private sector.
The perfect example is Malcolm Turnbull, who amassed a personal fortune of around A$120 million from a career in merchant banking, business and the law.
His A$235,000 salary as federal Opposition leader puts him below all state premiers bar Tasmania’s, and if he does reach the highest office in the land financial reward will be the least of his motivations. Macquarie Bank’s Allan Moss earned more than A$33 million in 2006 - 100 times the wage slave in the Lodge.
Highest paid world political leaders are under
Country Leader $A salary
• Singapore --------------Lee Hsien Loong -------- $3.8 million
• Hong Kong ----------- Donald Tsang ------------ $775,000
• Ireland ---------------- Brian Cowen ------------- $624,000
• United States -------- George Bush ------------- $597,000
• Japan ------------------ Taro Aso ------------------ $530,000
• France ---------------- Nicolas Sarkozy --------- $483,000
• Germany -------------- Angela Merkel ----------- $475,000
• United Kingdom ---- Gordon Brown ----------- $421,000
• Canada --------------- Stephen Harper ---------- $340,000
• Australia ------------- Kevin Rudd -------------- $330,000
• New Zealand -------- John Key ----------------- $325,000
• US Vice-Press ------ Dick Cheney ------------- $310,000
• Russia --------------- Vladimir Putin ----------- $120,000
• Bolivia --------------- Evo Morales ------------- $32,000
This entry was posted
on Monday, February 9, 2009
at 8:11 PM
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Angela Merkel,
Barack Obama,
Brian Cowen,
Donald Tsang,
George Bush,
Gordon Brown,
John Key,
Kevin Rudd,
Lee Hsien Loong,
Nicolas Sarkozy,
Stephen Harper,
Taro Aso,
Top 10 Salaries
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