The raise for the bosses of Synergy,Western Power,Water Corporation,Gold Corporation and the Fremantle and Pilbara port authorities was determined by the independent Salaries and Allowances Tribunal,which set the allowable range of their total remuneration to $527,000 to $776,000.
Chief executives of six smaller “Band 2” enterprises including the WA Treasury Corporation and the WA Land Authority now can earn between $333,000 and $610,000 a year,
By comparison,Premier Roger Cook earns $377,000 a year.
Synergy,Western Power and Water Corporation had revenues last financial year of $3.4 billion,$1.8 billion and $3.3 billion,respectively.
In the WA private sector,the chief executive of mineral sands producer Iluka,Tom O’Leary,earned $4.1 million last financial year for leading a company with annual revenue of $1.3 billion.
Zoran Bebic,managing director of contractor Monadelphous,with $1.8 billion of revenue,earned $1.2 million.
The boss of lithium miner Pilbara Minerals,Dale Henderson,earned $4 million in a year when sales of the battery ingredient reaped $4.1 billion of revenue.
The tribunal rejected calls for the upper pay band applied to the larger Band 1 enterprises to be substantially increased and linked to research on interstate and private sector pay.
“The Tribunal did not agree with this assertion,” the determination published on Wednesday read.
The tribunal noted linking to other pay would be an abrogation of its responsibilities,and the pay data referenced in the submissions was only relevant to a few of enterprises within its jurisdiction. The authors of the submissions was not disclosed.
The increase is less than the average wage increase in WA in 2023 of 4.7 per cent.
In 2023,the executives received a 3 per cent pay increase,as did parliamentarians,police officers and nurses employed by the government,in line with the state’s public sector wages policy.
In December 2023,Cook,instead opting to determine wages on a case-by-case basis. The decisions on government trading enterprises are the first made by the tribunal since then.
In a separate decision released at the same time,the range of allowable fees for the part-time chairs of Synergy,Western Power,Water Corporation and the Fremantle and Pilbara port authorities was also increased 4 per cent to range from $94,000 to $140,000. Fees for directors can now range from $45,000 to $70,000.
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