Trading enterprises head pay packets

GOVERNMENT trading enterprise chiefs continue to dominate the list of the state’s highest paid public servants, taking out the top six places according to annual reports tabled in parliament recently.

For the first time since WA Business News started surveying the remuneration of the state’s top bureaucrats, a major department doesn’t feature in the top handful of executive salaries.

Typically, the director-general of the Health Department has been the highest paid government executive in Western Australia, although regional energy utility Horizon Power CEO Rod Hayes took that honour last year. Mr Hayes’ remuneration receives a $77,000 boost due to the cost of housing in Karratha.

Before that, health chiefs Peter Flett and Neale Fong had headed the list since 2004, when the electricity utility Western Power was broken up into four entities – Horizon, Verve Energy, Synergy and networks group Western Power.

In 2003, short-lived Western Power chief Stephen van der Mye had topped the list with a salary of just more than $400,000. Prior to that, Mr van der Mye’s predecessor David Eiszele had headed the list, earning more than $570,000 in the year ending June 30 2001.

However, newly appointed health chief Kim Snowball will reappear among the top ranks next year with a salary of $540,000, after acting in the role since the departure of Mr Flett.

Three of the four energy corporations now dominate the list, with bonus or incentive payments featuring in each of these. Mr Hayes received almost $65,000 in performance pay on top of his salary, allowances and superannuation, Verve Energy chief Shirley In’t Veld received a $127,277 bonus, and Western Power chief Doug Aberle took home a $92,000 short-term incentive payment.

Synergy chief Jim Mitchell dropped out of the top 10 to $416,000. Last year he received $506,000 in total remuneration, including a $98,000 bonus.

LandCorp’s Ross Holt, one of the state’s longest serving agency heads, takes fourth spot on the executive ladder.

GESB chief Michele Dolin remains in the big league despite the state government’s decision in March to end the privatisation of the government employees’ superannuation administrator, a process that had prompted the group to bump up her salary in 2008 to a level more commensurate with the private sector.

Ms Dolin’s remuneration was $515,000. GESB said that figure remained unchanged from last year, noting that the reported 2009 salary of between $530,000 and $540,000 had been inaccurate.

At the time, the publication of that salary had caused a furore and refocused public attention on the top bureaucrat salary levels.

After the health department, the next significant department head’s pay packet is Police commissioner Karl O’Callaghan. He is estimated to receive around $450,000 based on Salary and Allowances Tribunal determinations, his length of service and the expectation that he would have chosen to a non-tenured contract.

Most of the rest of the bosses have their salaries determined by the SAT.

They include Public Sector Commission commissioner Mal Wauchope, Education Department director-general Sharyn O’Neill, under-Treasurer Tim Marney, chief justice of the WA Supreme Court Wayne Martin, Premier and Cabinet director-general Peter Conran, Department of Environment and Conservation director-general Kieran McNamara, and State Development director-general Anne Nolan.