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Finally, some good news. It mightn't feel like it, with grocery and power bills, mortgage payments and rent sucking the joy out of life but for some of us, wages are once again on the move.
At least they are for the hardest workers in our society. Not the nurses, teachers, garbos and firefighters. No, I'm talking about the unsung heroes who sacrifice everything so we might keep the roof over our heads, be sure the kids and the dog are fed and sleep soundly in our beds at night. The people many of us don't even realise are there.
These poor forgotten souls have earned the biggest pay rise they've had in about a decade. Well-deserved, too, when you think of the exertions they undertake in our name, week in, week out. Put yourself in their shoes.
There are those endless community events to attend with that smile plastered on your face, even though you'd rather be at home watching the final series of Billions (and you actually can't stand Jan from the CWA). The beery local business awards, the garden club annual dinner, the school presentation night, the Rotary changeover dinner, the opening of every village envelope, it goes on and on. Cynics might say it's all soft campaigning but you know it's bloody hard yakka.
There are a million letters to which you must reply and it's exhausting getting the staff to do this on your behalf. It's a struggle, too, ensuring these kids - who dream of one day becoming you - keep the community informed of every little thing you do on its behalf. The $10,000 for the new fish cleaning table. Money for the new kitchen for Meals for Wheels. So many media releases to sign off for distribution. Cynics might say you're just doing your job but you know there's so much more to it.
There are all the photos, starting with the selfies. At the beach, at the chocolate shop, at the joint in Marrickville that does the great pork banh mi, at every opportunity. Because of the insecurity in your line of work, you must - you absolutely must - make sure your face is plastered everywhere, especially social media. Even if it makes you appear self-obsessed and in dire need of a dentist.
There's the physical exertion too. Nodding furiously in agreement alongside the boss when they visit, talking subjects you know nothing about. The guffawing, the jeering through those televised meetings. Then the terror, the pride, the burden of the spotlight when it's your turn to ask a question at said meeting.
The travel. Oh, the onerous travel. Every few weeks, bundled on to a plane. The hardship might be softened with membership of Alan Joyce's Qantas Chairman's Lounge but it hardly takes the edge off. It's a superhuman feat you remember whether to say aye or nay when the time comes but at least you're keeping the seat warm.
Yep, be they the Member for Cook or the Member for Facebook, our garden variety federal members of parliament are this week celebrating a big pay rise. Their base rate of pay goes up this week from $217,000 to $225,680. The salary of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese goes up from $564,200 to $586,768 while Opposition Leader Peter Dutton sees his annual paypacket increase from $401,450 to $417,508.
Remember, that's base pay. There's a raft of allowances that go with it.
Remember, too, that this increase in what we pay our pollies is not set by them but by the Remuneration Tribunal so it's easy for the politicians to shrug, "Nothing to see here. We had nothing to do with it."
Somehow, our politicians are worth more than others. In the UK, your base model MP earns just shy of $170,000 a year. Members of Canada's parliament take home roughly $185,000 while Kiwi MPs earn almost $164,000.
Of course, not all MPs are equal. While many are all but invisible until election time, others really put their shoulder to the wheel. My Tasmanian mate, Ferret, reports that his his local MP, independent Andrew Wilkie, not only answers correspondence promptly, thoughtfully and unhindered by party talking points, but his office returns phone calls too. On the same day.
Now, that must be worth a bob or two.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Do you get value for money out of your local MP? Should they be paid more? Or less? Is it a job you've ever ever considered for yourself? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- The outgoing ACT Director of Public Prosecutions, Shane Drumgold SC, has commenced legal proceedings about the contents of a board of inquiry report which made serious findings against him, Chief Minister Andrew Barr has said.
- Linda Burney says she is "fighting fit" and thankful for support after breaking her silence over significant health issues which she insists are in the past. Australia's most senior Indigenous politician who is carrying the job of arguing the government's position for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament has disclosed various conditions including heart surgery and medication which she said had affected her speech.
- Independent ACT senator David Pocock has called for a super profits tax on fossil fuel companies and has urged the federal government to consider an increase in the GST as part of a broader tax reform agenda. Senator Pocock said there should be "an immediate focus" on taxing the very large profits secured by gas companies and other fossil fuel producers in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
THEY SAID IT: "It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages." - Henry Ford
YOU SAID IT: Australian made cardboard drones are being used by Ukraine in the war with Russia.
Ian W. writes: "How are we going to keep our $368 billion worth of nuclear submarines safe in a future war in oceans that will undoubtedly be filled with underwater drones and sophisticated listening devices? Unmanned, autonomous, underwater vehicles costing a miniscule fraction of the cost of a submarine are already being used for underwater exploration and you can bet that the major navies of the world are developing these things for military uses. A submarine gets hit by one, and boom, there goes a $50 billion asset filled with 100 or so humans. Spending huge amounts of our money on nuclear submarines strikes me as madness even not considering the monstrous financial burden they will place on future generations of Australians and the risk that their acquisition is sure to inflame tensions with our main trading partner."
"Is Anthony Pratt of Visyboard involved in this?" asks Dennis. "I do hope the cardboard used in the drones is made from recycled fibre."
Ian G. writes: "It concerns me that cardboard drones can drop death on anyone. The utter pointlessness of the whole conflict is bewildering. That Ukraine must bear the full brunt of if, lest ordinary Russians find out there is even a war happening, seems grossly unfair, yet everyone seems to agree that any cross-border spillover risks cataclysmic escalation, which means even more 'innocent' people dying. I would say even the soldiers are innocent, as none of them asked for it. And war without human casualties is a contradiction in terms. War machines are mostly designed to kill people. If it is just machine versus machine, when is the war won? When one country's war machines destroy all the other country's war machines? People will pick up any weapon to hand and continue to fight and die for what they believe in, until the human cost becomes too high."
"This is another example of Australian ingenuity and inventiveness," writes Arthur. "Unfortunately these drones can be easily copied. Australia has already supplied military hardware to Ukraine and has got involved in wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. We have a defence alliance with the US. The horse has already bolted. The drones do not significantly add to making Australia a military target. Unfortunately drones, artillery and submarines might remove humans from the conventional frontline but not from the expanded frontlines these devices will achieve."
Christopher writes: "The pizza pack drones take the stupidity of AUKUS to another level. I wrote to my local member - now a member of the Labor cabinet - many years ago asking what Australia was doing to defend itself against drones. The reply was a word salad without dressing."
"This sounds like a typical Aussie story," writes Lee. "Pack a beer box with explosives, add a few wings and a tail and she'll be right. I love this type of ingenuity. How people come up with things like this is beyond me. But good on them. And, no it doesn't worry me that an Aussie beer box is front line in the war."
Sue writes: "On one hand, I really like the image of a war being fought by paper planes. On the other hand, wars being fought without real humans is not much different from the computer games being played by millions of games addicts across the world. If the effects were the same, then I would be all for it. Think of it. You are the leader of a country, annoyed about something done by another country? Play a game and get it out of your system. The major consequences would be that the armaments companies, those big winners of the current wars, would not be making the huge profits, with the rich, again, getting richer. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to be the case. I suspect, however we go about it, that war will be here until humans die out because we have made our planet unlivable. Love the Echidna. Keep the flag flying. Not sure it is the appropriate closure after that comment but cheers anyway."