Pay rise: How much Turnbull, Scott Morrison, Bill Shorten and other MPs will get

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull listens to a question after announcing his new federal cabinet during a media conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, September 20, 2015. Reuters/David Gray

All MPs in parliament are set to receive thousands of extra dollars in pay. They will also have their tax cut on top of the salary rise.

According to the Herald Sun, federal politicians will be up to $4,000 better off starting July 1 after an independent tribunal decided to give backbench MPs a 2 percent pay rise. The pay rise and tax cut means Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will soon be around $17,000 better off. Currently, he gets $517,000 per year.

Treasurer Scott Morrison, on the other hand, will see his salary climb to $380,662. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s pay packet will rise $375,587, and deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek will get $319,756.

The average cabinet minister’s salary will be $350,209, while their opposition counterparts will earn $253,775. Greens leader Richard Di Natale will see his pay rise to $289,303.

Backbench MPs gets an increase from $199,040 to $203,020 per year. The median salary in the country is about $80,000 a year.

The announcement of a pay rise, the first for politicians in 18 months, comes as wage growth is at a record low. Turnbull’s cash bonus is nearly half the national minimum wage of $36,134 paid to more than 2.3 million workers. Meanwhile, some workers in the hospitality, fast-food and retail industries will also face penalty rate cuts from July.

The independent Remuneration Tribunal decided to give politicians, federal judges and bureaucratic fat cats a pay rise, a decision that Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance executive director Tim Andrews has condemned. “It is an absolute disgrace that at the same time our politicians are raising taxes on struggling families and we have over $500 billion in debt our political class is rewarding itself with more lavish pay rises,” he said.

In its ruling, the tribunal noted it obtained a "notable increase in submissions" asking for pay rises. Andrews argued the country has some of the highest paid bureaucrats being paid two or three times their counterparts in the United States and United Kingdom.

In the 2014 Budget, former Aussie Prime Minister Tony Abbott froze the pay of all politicians as he pointed out that all Australians had to contribute in repairing the budget deficit. Kevin Rudd also froze politicians’ pay for 18 months in 2018, citing the global financial crisis. The recently announced pay rise for Aussie politicians also came as the Department of Finance released the latest batch of MPs' expenses report.

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