The Coalition is offering senior bureaucrats paid bonuses under an Abbott government. The move is seen as an effort by the Opposition to counter the strong performance of Prime Minister and Australian Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd in the latest poll.

The results of the Newspoll survey released on Monday night showed that Mr Rudd has turned around the negative image of Labor under former PM Julia Gillard and had overtaken Opposition leader Tony Abbott as the preferred PM by 22 per cent.

The paid bonus offer, made by Arthur Sinodinos, the chairman of the Coalition's deregulation taskforce, was made a day after the Newspoll survey came out, although the Opposition said the aim of the proposed financial rewards is to get the best from government workers.

"Philosophically, there is a commitment to performance pay as an element of performance management," The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Mr Sinodinos.

The Howard government used the bonus payments to encourage government executives to be more responsive, but Labor opposed the schemed since it only made government officials give only the advice that ministers wanted to hear.

When Mr Rudd came to power in 2007, he removed the bonuses for department heads and took away the payments from the contracts of senior executives resulting in only 3 in 10 senior officials getting bonuses in 2012 versus 7 in 10 before 2007.

The Coalition said the bonuses would be linked to quantified and proven cuts in red and green tape, while reducing regulation would be a key performance criterion in reappointing bureaucrats.

"We are cognizant of the fact that, in dealing with the public sector, where you have to juggle complex, multiple objectives at once, it's not as straightforward as in business, where you can just look at the bottom line," Mr Sinodinos said.

Data from the Public Service Commission said the bonuses paid to government workers ranged from $800 for junior staff to $42,000 for deputy agency heads.

Meanwhile, Queensland independent MP Peter Wellington opined that the federal Coalition has dipped its hands into the state's pay rise because of its impact on the national elections originally scheduled on Sept 14.

Under the plan, MPs would get a 42 per cent pay rise, meaning state backbenchers would get $57,000 more a year, ministers would add $90,000 and Premier Campbell Newman would boost his pay by $117,000.

However, Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney announced on Tuesday a review of the huge increase to Queensland MPs following public uproar over the pay hikes. The Queensland Council of Unions said the salary increases should not be higher than those given to other state public sector workers and added the proposed pay increase is totally unacceptable.

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