Aussie bosses paid over four times their Kiwi counterparts

Maybe the grass truly is greener. Photo / 123rf

The highest paid bosses in Australia pocketed over four times the amount of their Kiwi counterparts last year.

The figures come from an annual report compiled by the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI) and designed to give transparency to shareholders with a vested interest in ASX companies.

New Zealander Ian Narev is one of Australia's top paid chief executives according to pay survey.

The Auckland University alumni is the chief executive of CommonWealth Bank and ranked number 8 in the top 10 highest paid executives on the Australian stockmarket. He earns just over A$12 million (NZ$13m). That's roughly $5.5m more than New Zealand's highest paid boss in 2016.

Former SkyCity chief executive Nigel Morrison clocked the top position on the Herald's CEO pay survey at $6,493,284. That pales in comparison to the ASX's highest earner Nicholas Moore who took home A$25,725,006.

The median realised pay for Aussie executives was A$3.9m, close to 3 times higher than the New Zealand median pay of $1.35m.

Other executives to grace the ASX top ten list included Domino's Pizza chief executive Don Meij who just over A$21m in 2016 and Ramsay Health Care boss Chris Rex who took home A$18m.

Quantas Airways chief executive Alan Joyce earned A$14.3m, over 3 times the pay packet of his counterpart at Air New Zealand Christopher Luxon who earned $4m.

Number 10 on the ASX list - Mark McInnes of Premier Investments - earned A$11m, over four times the amount of New Zealand's number 10 earner, Patrick Davies of Ebos, who took home $2.68m.

Neither the ASX or NZX list of top earners featured a woman.