AUSTRALIA POST BOSS ‘BEMUSED’ BY SALARY OUTCRY
AUSTRALIA POST chief Ahmed Fahour says he was “bemused” by the storm surrounding his $5.6 million pay packet and he didn’t “hold a gun to the Government’s head” to secure the deal.
In comments likely to fan the controversy over his remuneration, the outgoing postmaster also says other corporate bosses have kept their jobs and huge pay packets despite “doing things to their secretaries”.
But those industry chiefs have not attracted the same level of scrutiny of their pay, he says. Mr Fahour resigned in February after seven years in the top job just as the Federal Government vowed to crack down on pay deals at the top of Australia Post that were out of step with community expectations.
In the candid comments during a presentation at the University of NSW Business School on Wednesday night, Mr Fahour said wage scrutiny was “a reality that comes with the job”.
“It is a source of anxiety because CEOs are well paid people – the kind of money they earn versus the ordinary wage of somebody sitting there on fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty thousand dollars,” he said.
“You could be earning a million dollars and they’d think it is ridiculous.”
Mr Fahour said that at the height of the controversy, he was “sort of bemused by it all”.
“It’s not as if I held a gun to the Government’s head or to the board’s head and said, ‘if you don’t pay me this I’m not going to do this job’.
“You know, this was what was offered.”