10 Best Paid Politicians

The Australian (www.theaustralian.news.com.au) ran this story on 2 April 2009:

10 best paid politicians

WITH the world's leaders convening in London to solve some of the biggest problems in several generations, now is a good time to compare what they are paid.

The Times has done just that, compiling this list of politicians' pay, measured for comparison's sake in US dollars. Once you get past highest paid, Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore, who is on S$3.76 million (US$2.47 million), the packages level out in the $US200,000 to $US400,000 range.

All fair and equitable, you might think. But how big are the countries run by these people? Does it figure that Barack Obama earns $US400,000 for being President of the United States and Kevin Rudd takes home $US229,000 for being top dog in Canberra?

We crunched the figures further. If you divide the salary by head of population, the ladder of remuneration is significantly reshuffled, and our own Prime Minister leaps from 10th to fourth while Obama slides from third to 10th. So by this measure, Rudd is earning roughly 10 times the US President, and that's not factoring in the freelance fee he pocketed for his 7000-word monologue against free-market capitalism in The Monthly.

1. Lee Hsien Loong - Singapore
Salary: $US2.47 million
Per head of population: 54c

2. Brian Cowen - Ireland
Salary: $US341,000
Per head of population: 9c

3. Donald Tsang Yum-Kuen - Hong Kong
Salary: $US516,000
Per head of population: 7c

4. Kevin Rudd - Australia
Salary: $US229,000
Per head of population: 1c

5. Stephen Harper - Canada
Salary: $US246,000
Per head of population: 0.7c

6. Nicolas Sarkozy - France
Salary: $US318,000
Per head of population: 0.5c

7. Gordon Brown - UK
Salary: $US279,000
Per head of population: 0.5c

8. Angela Merkel - Germany
Salary: $US303,000
Per head of population: 0.4c

9. Taro Aso - Japan
Salary: $US243,000
Per head of population: 0.2c

10. Barack Obama - United States
Salary: $US400,000
Per head of population: 0.1c