The Duchess of Westminster once complained that the problem with being rich was that she had to sack gardeners. Or at least her husband did.
In Australia, the problem with getting very well paid is that you have to front up to shareholders once a year to justify the package. And you also have your name emblazoned in the Australian Financial Review's annual salary survey, along with your company's performance.
That's not a problem for some. BHP's Paul Anderson received $A7.1 million (9.2 million) last year. And while that would seem an obscene amount to many people, his mere presence, abilities and sense of timing helped to push BHP's sharemarket value up about $10 billion in the past 12 months. None of his shareholders is complaining about that.
Little is said, also, of the huge packages paid to Rupert Murdoch ($A12.4 million) and his right-hand man, Peter Chernin ($A22.6 million) , or to Westfield's Frank Lowy ($A8.4 million). These men control their companies and seem to have carte blanche to charge as they see appropriate.
The most controversial packages of the year were those awarded to One. Tel founders Jodee Rich and Brad Keeling, who organised for themselves bonuses and other incentives of $A6.9 million each, although most of the company's shareholders knew not a thing about it.
That might have been okay if the company's results and share price had been heading north, but they have not. Indeed, their friend and company chairman, director James Packer, even conceded to an angry annual meeting last week that the huge payouts and the distrust they created had contributed to the share price fall.
Macquarie Bank attracts a lot of attention because it has more million-dollar salary packages than any other listed company (well, it is the only publicly owned merchant bank), and it has redefined the meaning of the word bonus.
For many people, that might mean an extra 5 or 10 per cent at the end of the year. At Macquarie Bank, five and 10 are the multiples you can apply to your salary.
Chairman David Clarke defended the bank's policy by noting that chief executive Allan Moss was paid a "modest" base salary of $500,000. That is the high-flying equivalent of not very much, but he also received a bunch of options ($663,000) as part of his base pay, as well as bonuses and other incentives amounting to $3.8 million.
It is a typical package for Macquarie executives, who are also not afraid of cashing in. If you noticed the share price of Macquarie Bank taking a tumble on Friday it was because the staff were taking advantage of the few windows they have to sell their shares as they cashed up for new apartments, sports cars, holidays and school fees.
But the worst fate that can befall a chief executive in the Financial Review survey is to have a big pay rise highlighted beside a big fall in the company's performance.
A third of the top 150 companies have suffered a slump in share price over the past year, but only a handful of those firms reduced the amount they gave their highest-paid executive.
For the record, they were: Brambles Industries, National Foods, ANZ Banking Corp, FH Faulding, CC Amatil, Pacific Dunlop and David Jones.
Which means that more than 40 of the biggest companies in Australia paid more to their chief executives this year despite a worsening of the companies' financial position or share price.
These statistics always create a polemic between those who argue that salaries in Australia are generally below those overseas (which with the current rate of the Australian dollar is certainly true), and those who argue that the rewards are right out of kilter with the public service.
It was the same last week. The Financial Review survey highlighted the fact that the average pay rise for chief executives was 26.8 per cent. The Government and Reserve Bank threaten rises in interest rates when general wages jump more than 4 per cent.
How ironic, then, that so many politicians who find themselves on the wrong side of the ballot box should be tempted into the private sector.
Former Victorian Treasurer Alan Stockdale, who doled out tens of millions of dollars in fees to merchant bankers he hired to sell the state's energy assets, is a case in point. As is former NSW Premier Nick Greiner, who has become an enthusiastic collector of directorships.
* Giles Parkinson is editor of AFR.com.
<i>Sydney view:</i> Chief executives ignore pleas for pay restraint
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