Earlier this week, Tony Shepherd suggested Australia risked being crippled by pension spending. Kaye gave her thoughts on his comments, and many of you asked what Mr Shepherd was paid by Australian taxpayers for chairing the Commission of Audit back in 2013-14.
So, we did a little digging and the results were revealing. Mr Shepherd was paid $1500 per day while working on the Commission of Audit. He and his four fellow commissioners, including former Liberal Senator Amanda Vanstone, were in the highest pay bracket that exists for specialist advisers to government.
Mr Shepherd’s daily pay while working on the audit is 24 times the daily rate a person earns on the full Age Pension ($62.65 dollars per day).
In total, it has been reported that Mr Shepherd was paid around $85,000 for his work on the Commission.
The audit, which was designed to help the Government ‘live within our means’ also had a little problem in that area.
The Coalition predicted that the commission would spend around $1 million producing its report, but once it was delivered in May 2014 it ended up costing taxpayers closer to $2.5 million.
The amount it cost to produce the report could fund 113 people on the full Age Pension for one year.
Is Mr Shepherd qualified to talk about further reducing access to the Age Pension? Let us know your thoughts.
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