Politics - an expensive hobby
Categories : Australia, News, Politics |
Business beckons as Birney packs in politics – for now : thewest.com.au
I don’t normally pay a lot of attention to WA state politics but this story grabbed my attention for a couple of reasons. Matt Birney, former leader of the WA liberal opposition, announced yesterday he will be quitting politics to pursue a career in business. This will be a huge blow to the already hopeless WA Liberal party - Birney is one of their few bright stars who at least can string a sentence together and look good on TV (unlike their leader Paul Omodei).
One of the reasons Birney gave for quitting, in his refreshingly honest announcement was that politics is “an expensive hobby that did not pay the bills.” This drew a bit of fire from the West today, since the $125,000 base pay plus allowances of a backbencher is far above the average wage in our community. However I must say I agree with Birney here and always find it annoying when the media complain about MP’s salaries. The fact is that although MP’s get a pay that is considerably above the average wage, they have to work incredibly hard and make a lot of sacrifices for it. And more tellingly, the pay of even a senior federal minister working incredibly long hours in a high pressure job, is still far below what can be earned in corporate management. If we want the best quality people running our country we should be prepared to pay them adequately. Leaders in business, law, medicine and other professions are unlikely to be able to take a huge pay cut in order to enter the risky arena of politics. Especially in these boom times where unskilled young people can be earning well over $100,000 in the mining industry, we should be paying our government leaders more. And in reality, even if we were to double the salary of all the MPs in the country, the impact on the federal and state budgets would be minimal - a small price to pay for potentially attracting the best possible candidates to run our governments.
