20 Dec 2012

Pay rise for politicians

8:02 pm on 20 December 2012

Politicians have received a wage rise of nearly 2% backdated to the beginning of July.

But the Remuneration Authority, which released its pay determination on Thursday afternoon, says MPs are still lagging behind the increases given to other workers.

The prime minister will now get $419,300 a year, up from just over $411,000.

The pay for backbench MPs goes up from $141,800 to $144,600.

But according to the Remuneration Authority, they're still doing it tough.

It says since 2009 their pay has increased by just 2.9% which is about half of the overall wage increase.

The authority also says this 1.9% increase still lags behind general wage increases.

Judges, however, are luckier with their salaries increasing by about 2.5%.