Australia’s controversial eSafety Commissioner is now earning $536,000 a year to censor the internet and joins dozens of other unelected senior bureaucrats earning more than half a million taxpayer dollars a year.
Julie Inman Grant was given a $74,000 salary bump, while Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett, who was appointed in August, benefited from a $19,000 pay rise, bringing her renumeration package to $816,000 a year.
The Renumeration Tribunal last week revealed the salary increases, which came into effect at the beginning of the financial year and amount to a collective pay increase of about 2.4%, putting 78 senior agency heads on more than $500K a year.
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority chair John Lonsdale earns the most with a $1,004,300 package, followed by Australian Public Service Commissioner Gordon de Brouwer, who is now in $932,120, up from $910,270.
ASIO Director-General of Security Mike Burgess is making $753,240 a year, Anti-Corruption Commissioner Paul Brereton is earning $803,440, and National Disability Insurance Agency CEO Graeme Head is taking home a package worth $711,050.
More than 30 other government employees earn over $1 million a year, including Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Steven Kennedy and Treasury secretary Jenny Wilkinson.
Commonwealth public sector salaries cost the taxpayer $40.9 billion last financial year, up from $37.3 billion, after a 5.6% increase in federal government jobs to 386,000.
State and territory governments spent $191.1 billion on wages for almost 2 million workers, up 7.3%. Local government wage spend increased 6.9% to $17.6 billion.
Ms Inman Grant spearheaded Australia’s under-16s social media ban, had been embroiled in a series of lawsuits and controversies while trying to censor global social media platform, and could end up with even more power under the government’s proposed “digital duty of care” scheme.
In September she threatened to fine X $X825,000 per day unless it removed 23 posts containing CCTV footage of the brutal murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska by a black career criminal in the US, sparking global outrage about censorship overreach, is responsible for bringing in mandatory search engine age checks, and coordinated with a shadowy global “advertising cartel” to silence free speech.
She was also criticised by Mr Jordan and Elon Musk for her failed legal attempts to impose a global censorship regime by forcing X to delete videos she claimed were illegal, and last year threatened to fine X $800,000 over a post calling a biological female a woman.
Header image: Left, Julie Inman Grant (eSafety). Right, Krissy Barrett (AFP).
