Qld politicians get a 35% pay rise

[weg]

Maybe for the service as well, and simply wanting to do better ?

ta
rolf

The power would come from knowing you would be in a better position than most to make a difference/changes.

Naturally with that would come a passion for politics, and an ideology.

With many in the Labor Party, often it's a natural progression from union official to politician, but the above would still apply.

 

[MarkB]

The vast majority of candidates realise that "going it alone" as an independent is nigh on impossible, save for a few very rare exceptions.....and hence they align themselves with the political party that most closely aligns with their personal philosophy.

Sure, but (and this is getting off topic) I think you'll see more and more politicians on the cross benches in years to come.

(A lot, not all, of what I am about to say refers to Canberra)

It might have been the exception in the past, but it is becoming quite common now (especially with the rise of the greens), so I would expect that going forward we will see more minor parties holding the BoP in the Senate.

And, the prospect that cross-benchers could actually determine the government of the day (in the House of Reps) is, as we know, very much real. It's happened once, will almost certainly happen again.

In the Federal House of Reps there were 6 on on the cross-benches in 2010.

After this last election there are now 5.

People come and go of course, but if the election results are close enough then those few seats in the middle are the kingmakers.

What I find interesting is the sorts of people who end up on the CBs. Often big personalities (Katter, Richard Torbay [ex NSW Parliament]), people pissed off with the major parties (again Katter, Tony Windsor, Oakeshott). Or "Niche" parties with a strong candidate (Adam Bandt in Melbourne, Jan Barham in NSW Parliament [both greens]).

And then there is the biggest of them all - Clive Palmer who is (1) big personality, who is (2) pissed off with the major parties, and is (3) now representing a niche party. To borrow a sporting analogy, if there was a "triple-crown" for cross-bench MPs, he'd have it. Palmer has never been an MP for a major party, but according to Wikipedia he was elected to Life Membership of the Qld Branch of the National Party back in 1992, and as recently as 2012 he said he would be seeking to represent the Liberal Party.

My point being that circumstances that have led to "non-major party representation" in the lower house of a Parliament (be it Federal or State) aren't likely to go away imo... if anything they could become more common.

Ted Mack (NSW Parliament and later Federal) was way ahead of his time in that regard (btw, he retired from NSW Parliament 2 days before he was due to receive a parliamentary pension - a personal statement against what he considered the excesses of public political office).

 

[Angel]

The workplace is only unusual because almost everyone has a degree, have raked up many years of service, with the majority of staff upgraded to higher classification levels than the roles would normally command (don't understand why this was funded but staff were encouraged to apply for the higher levels).

Out of the 90 or so staff there are only about 2 fulltime general office staff, 2 PA's, and a handful of ancillary staff.

That is why your previous comments are irrelevant in this discussion. You seemed to be saying that yours is a typical public service workplace when it obviously is not. Maybe you work in a head office rather than in a local front line service.

The majority of public servants are teachers, nurses, clerical officers who earn bugger all and have no way to increase their earnings because of merit and higher classification roles. Every year the govt takes on more casuals and temps as the older permanent staff retire and following last year's retrenchments.

 

[weg]

That is why your previous comments are irrelevant in this discussion. You seemed to be saying that yours is a typical public service workplace when it obviously is not. Maybe you work in a head office rather than in a local front line service.

The majority of public servants are teachers, nurses, clerical officers who earn bugger all and have no way to increase their earnings because of merit and higher classification roles. Every year the govt takes on more casuals and temps as the older permanent staff retire and following last year's retrenchments.

Not at all irrelevant when it shows not all PS workplaces have a cut off of 100K as Tigger keeps insisting.

It's only unusual in that it hasn't got a lot of admin and ancillary staff - not what politicians should be compared to anyway.

And I would hardly say teachers and nurses earn 'bugger all'.

QLD teachers salary range as per the existing award is 87,866K for an experienced senior teacher (completed all years of service) to 150,161K which inc. deputy principal and principal.

Other in between roles like Head of Curriculum and Head of Department command salaries of up to 114,375.

Then there are the Head/s of Education like Coutts-Trotter in NSW who was earning close to 400K pa at one stage as Head of Education (don't know what the QLD ones are earning).

 

[sanj]

That is why your previous comments are irrelevant in this discussion. You seemed to be saying that yours is a typical public service workplace when it obviously is not. Maybe you work in a head office rather than in a local front line service.

The majority of public servants are teachers, nurses, clerical officers who earn bugger all and have no way to increase their earnings because of merit and higher classification roles. Every year the govt takes on more casuals and temps as the older permanent staff retire and following last year's retrenchments.

Bzzzt wrong, guess again please.

Teachers and nurses receive pretty decent pay in WA at least, certainly not bugger all.