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Monday, 20 June 2011
Page: 3242

Senator BOB BROWN (Tasmania—Leader of the Australian Greens) (10:27): I move:

(1)   Schedule 1, item 8, page 7 (after line 29), after Part 2D.8, insert:

Part 2D.9—Limit on benefits for key management personnel

206N—Limit on benefits for key management personnelDespite any other provision of this Act, an entity must not give, or propose to give, a benefit in connection with a member of the key management personnel of the entity which in any financial year exceeds, or is capable of exceeding, an amount that is 30 times the average wage or salary of a full-time employee of the entity.

Note 1:   The recipient of the benefit need not be the member of the key management personnel.

Note 2:   Key management personnel has the meaning given by section 9.

(2)   If the benefit is given, or is proposed to be given, in connection with a member of the key management personnel of the entity for a period of less than 12 months in a financial year, the amount calculated under subsection (1) is taken to be reduced proportionately to reflect the number of days in that year to which the benefit relates.

(3)   In this section:

benefit includes the amount of the benefit or the money value of the benefit (if it is not, or not solely, a payment of a monetary amount).

entity includes related entities, so that the total or all benefits given by related entities in relation to a member of the key management personnel must not exceed the relevant amount. full-time employee does not include any person who is a member of the key management personnel or who holds a similar position, or any other person prescribed by the regulations.

(4)   For the purposes of subsection (1), the regulations may prescribe a method or methods for the calculation of the average wage or salary of a full-time employee of an entity.

The amendment is self-explanatory. There are definitions below that. It means that we as a parliament responsible for ensuring that the people of this nation share in its wealth put a limit of 30 times on the packages of CEOs that of the average worker in a corporation. I am not going to labour the point. It is so obviously self-explanatory; it is so obviously reasonable; it is so obviously decent; it is so obviously in keeping with Australians and the hard work that people do for corporations that there should be such a limit paid on the executive caps.

We are talking about this in an era in which stronger action is being taken in Europe, in an era in which we are seeing—and I know that the opposition argues—a greater international interchange of CEOs. Many of the CEOs that get these extra­ordinary packages in Australia come to Australia for a few years and leave again. The opposition argues—

Senator Cormann: And the government.

Senator BOB BROWN: And the government, that they will be better skilled than Australians. I do not accept that. I do not believe it and, as I said in the second reading speech, I think there is a humanity involved in the payment in the qualities that you look for in a CEO. There is some parallel here in the endless argument about how well or otherwise members of parlia­ment are paid and there can be no justification—and I have heard none in this debate and will hear none—for packages as big as $16 million in one year being taken, raked off by CEOs of big banks in this country, while, as I said, there is a regressive tax at ATM level on the poorest people in Australia, put on by the banks and illegal if it were in the United Kingdom, but done here in Australia and raising enormous amounts of money. It is not enough to pay for those CEO packages, you would not think, but contributes to them at the expense of people who are having a real struggle—good Australians, people who have worked all their lives for this country and for these corporations, who find themselves in struggle street while bank managers and mining corporation managers take home packages way in excess of $10 million, and headed even higher in a country where the principle of a fair go and a reasonable relationship between CEOs packages and those of ordinary workers has been lost and needs to be regained. I commend this amendment to the bill to the chamber.