The Remuneration Tribunal’s review of Commonwealth departmental secretary salaries should confront the large and poorly justified gap between top bureaucrats and the senior executives beneath them.

When last year the salary of the top Commonwealth departmental secretaries tipped over the magic million mark, Senator Jacqui Lambie’s blood, usually on high simmer, boiled over.

She introduced a Bill that would have capped these salaries at $430,000 per annum.

In doing so she cursed against what she called a “culture of obscene entitlement at the top of the Commonwealth bureaucracy” and invoked the infamously unreliable “pub test” to assert that the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet “shouldn’t be earning twice the salary of the Deputy Prime Minister.”

Lambie’s Bill was referred to a parliamentary committee and was later voted down.

Yet the Bill and its associated histrionics may have jangled nerves in relevant quarters.

While it has usually increased Secretary salaries annually in June, the Remuneration Tribunal recently “notified its decision to determine no adjustment to remuneration for public offices in its jurisdiction with effect from 1 July 2026.”

Then, in lieu of that usual leg up, the Tribunal announced a “comprehensive review” of Secretary salaries and issued a “consultation paper” with an invitation for comments thereon. This is a welcome change to the Tribunal’s usual methods in which it has kept its cards close to it chest.

The consultation paper provides useful background and explanation as........

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