‘Questions have to be asked’: Tribunal to review $1m bureaucrat salaries

The salaries of Australia’s highest-paid bureaucrats will be reviewed for the first time in 15 years due to concerns their pay, which ranges between $800,000 and $1 million a year, is out of line with community expectations.

The independent Remuneration Tribunal expressed concern that confidence in the pay of public office holders could be lost if remuneration was no longer “credible, consistent and well-understood”, as it announced a 14-month review.

“Remuneration for departmental secretaries has evolved over several decades in response to changes in work value, complexity and [public service]-wide remuneration structures,” a statement from the tribunal read.

“Current arrangements have not been comprehensively examined for nearly 15 years, and the tribunal considers a full review both timely and appropriate,” it said.

“The tribunal recognises the strong public interest in the remuneration of senior public officials and is committed to ensuring arrangements remain fair, transparent and aligned with contemporary expectations.”

Dr Steven Kennedy, head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, is the highest-paid departmental secretary, with a base salary of $1,035,690. Jenny Wilkinson, head of the Treasury department, earns $1,009,790 per year.

By contrast, the prime minister earns an annual salary of around $622,050, and the opposition leader earns around $432,250.

Other departmental secretaries earn between $983,910 and $828,550 of base salary a year. However, in the 2024-25 financial year, seven secretaries, including Home Affairs head Stephanie Foster and Infrastructure head Jim Betts, earned more than $1 million.

Top public service mandarins also enjoy additional benefits, such as a “settling-in allowance” of up to $24,178 to “assist with the transition” to Canberra, and a 12-month severance package for termination before the end of a secretary’s term.

Some MPs have campaigned against the sky-high salaries, with Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie introducing legislation in February attempting to cap departmental secretary salaries at $430,000 per year, a move rejected by Labor and the Coalition.

David Pocock, independent senator for the ACT, said: “When departmental secretaries are earning close to 10 times the average Australian wage, and seven of them are clearing a million dollars [in actual pay] a year, questions have to be asked”.

“These salaries are well beyond what counterparts in comparable countries are paid, and are out of line with what Australians expect. I welcome the decision of the Remuneration Tribunal taking a look at them,” Pocock said.

The tribunal sets salaries for all federal MPs, judges and top-level bureaucrats. In June 2025, the tribunal applied a 2.4 per cent pay rise for politicians across the board, seeing a backbench MP’s salary boosted to $239,267 per year.

The last review took place in 2012 and found departmental secretaries were underpaid.

Responses to the tribunal’s consultation paper are open until early June. The tribunal will complete its review by mid-2027.

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