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Jarrod Hedley's avatar

Politicians pay should be performance based. Most in Parliament at the moment would have to pay to stay.

In all seriousness, an MP's salary used to be similar to a principal of a school....why, I ask, is there a massive difference between them now? Politicians are doing the same jobs, as are principals, yes things have changed in terms of tools etc and no doubt for principals a lot more social issues within their schools. Politicians now have a lot more people at their beck and call and spend billions on top of their salaries on consultants and reports. I bet 50 years ago the politician had a couple of people to rely on to gather information and support them and not much else.

On that basis, our MP's and PM are massively overpaid already.

Most politicians don't have the skill base to make it to senior roles within in the private sector, so why are we paying them as though they have got those skills?

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Andrew Riddell's avatar

The whole 'compare the salary with the private sector' is flawed because it accepts the obscene rorting of salary that occurs at senior levels of corporations.

Better to set it as a multiple of the median wage.

At least that keeps some connection with reality.

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