Institutionalised and legalised robbery
The Productivity Commission's Report on executive salaries does not effectively deal with the huge gap between executive packages and average wage in Australia.
This has been a costly exercise in shameful whitewashing of out of control remuneration practices.
Amazingly, Corporate Law Minister Chris Bowen responded that, "it was never the intention of the government to control the excess of executive remuneration".
If not, why not we must ask!
Australians should realise that, if this attitude prevails, meaningful reform won't happen.
Our egalitarian society is undermined by the greedy big end of town engaged in institutionalised and legalised robbery.
The ALP, as the governing party, has a responsibility to address this issue.
Ninety per cent of Australians are rightly disgusted with this situation.
The Commission's argument that caps, favoured by many critics, are costly and not practical, is nonsense.
I have advocated to the Commission, to introduce a ratio of 10:1 so that a maximum CEO salary package would be $600,000.
That would be a massive saving for the corporations involved, money that could be much better spent on environmental investments.
Their response that this would limit our so-called competitiveness in term of attracting foreign CEOs is laughable.
The outrageous packages that have been paid to foreign executives, who very often put in below par performances, makes a mockery of that argument.
Email, 6 Jan 2010
Klaas Woldring, Pearl Beach