Fat but not obscene: NBN chief’s pay packet

James Riley
Friday, 14 August 2009 05:12

IT Industry - Market

Kevin Rudd’s war on Fat Cat salaries has produced its first moderately overweight cat, with Government announcing a maximum salary of $1.95 million for new NBN Company chief executive Mike Quigley.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy’s office said the package was “well within industry standards” as applied to both Government sector executives and the telecommunications industry.

The package, negotiated jointly by Finance and the department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, will not include any long term incentive or equity-based rewards. And while serving as NBN Co executive chairman, Quigley won’t receive any short term incentives.

The size of the Quigley remuneration seems unlikely to cause a ripple, and has been painted by Senator Conroy’s office as a working example of moderation, at least compared with contemporary senior telco executives.

It points to the $3.5 million package that current Telstra CEO David Thodey is paid – which was itself considered modest when it was announced earlier this year. And pales against the $9 million taken home by former Telstra chief  Sol Trujillo took home last financial year (although this included $3.7 million in termination pay.)

According to a December CommsDay salary survey, Optus chief Paul O’Sullivan takes home $2.7 million and Quigley’s pay packet doesn’t even get him in the top ten of Australian telco executives.

But stacked against departmental heads in the public service, or the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, Quigley take-home pay is many times greater.

However, having brought to the position global telecommunications experience to the role, Government clearly believes Quigley is great value for money.

The newly-apppointed NBN Company directors will be paid $90,000 a year, a rate set by the Remuneration Tribunal, which sets pay scales for parliamentarians, judges and the top rank executives in Government-owned enterprises.

The NBN Co directors fees are not considered lavish by some private sector standards, but compare will with Government business. Directors t multi-billion concerns like Medibank Private receive between $46,000 and $58,000, while most executives at Australia Post receive less than the new NBN Co directors.

Meanwhile, Senator Conroy has revealed for the first time that Quigley’s executive chairman role at the NBN Co is not forever, and that he will eventually step aside.

“Mr Quigley is currently performing dual roles of NBN Co Executive Chairman and CEO,” Senator Conroy’s office said in a statement. “It is expected that over time a Non-Executive Chairman will be appointed, at which time Mr Quigley will relinquish his Executive Chairman role and continue as CEO”