Why socialists think politicians should be on an average worker’s wage

The Victorian Socialists have a policy to put politicians on an average worker’s wage. Federal parliamentarians currently get a base salary of $230,000, which puts them in the top 5 percent of Australian income earners. Ministers get more than $350,000, putting them in the top 1 percent.

On top of that, they get heaps of benefits like a travel allowance—which lets them claim $310 per night spent in Canberra for parliament even if they stay in their own house while they’re there.

We think all this is too much and that they should get something resembling an average full-time worker’s wage. After all, if politicians had to live more like the rest of us, they might think differently about their decisions in parliament.

We think politicians’ base salary should be no more than that of a sixth-year nurse, which is currently just over $92,000. To show that we’re serious about this policy, other VS candidates and I have pledged that if elected, we’ll accept only $92,000 out of our salary and donate the rest—around $140,000—to local campaigns to make our communities a better place for working-class people.

In response to this policy, a few people have noted that the workers’ movement historically fought for parliamentary salaries: the Chartists in early nineteenth-century Britain, for example.

The thing is, we’re not saying politicians shouldn’t be paid at all. Not paying politicians at all would mean, as it did then, that you could be a politician only if you came from money and could support yourself.

We’re just saying politicians should be paid an average worker’s wage. It’s strange in that context to say working-class people couldn’t get by as politicians earning only $92,000 when most workers are getting by on less than that now.

Another objection is that politicians deserve to be in the top 5 percent of income earners because their job is very hard and stressful. Here’s an example from one of our social media channels: “It’s a pretty shit job at times. Someone is always upset with you, even when you do your best. You have to give up a lot of privacy, and the job requires you to work at all kinds of hours”.

I’ll just quote one excellent reply someone gave: “Ex hospo worker here. Can confirm someone is always upset at you, even when you try your best. Work all kinds of hours, get doxxed by the creep you wouldn’t go out with. $18.70 an hour”.

Millions of workers in Australia are doing work just as hard and stressful as what politicians do—and doing it for less than half of what politicians are being paid.

Just because being a politician can be hard and stressful at times doesn’t mean the financial reward should be greater than that of 95 percent of other workers.

Another objection is that politicians need to be paid a lot so that parliament can attract the most talented people. An example from a comment on X responding to our policy: “Nonce. The salary needs to be properly paid to try and attract good people from the private sector”.

The problem is that there’s zero evidence that higher salaries mean better, more talented people. The absolute worst people in Australia are billionaires like Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart. The heads of banks and other big businesses earning multimillion-dollar salaries are all anti-working-class scum. And the current crop of well-paid politicians is hardly an advertisement for “talent”.

The most genuinely talented, creative and energetic people aren’t usually those in it for the money. They’re the people who have a genuine passion for something and are prepared to work for it even if it doesn’t result in massive financial rewards.

Politics is perhaps the worst career to get into for the money. It means you’re likely to think more of yourself and your prospects than the people you’re supposed to be serving.

We want parliamentarians to stand up to the powerful vested interests that dominate politics today—not join them. We want people who want to work to build a better society. You’re unlikely to do that if you’re the kind of person who would rather be a real estate agent, a banker or a lawyer instead because you’d make better money.

This relates to people’s third main objection: paying politicians less will make them more susceptible to bribery and corruption. For example, one person argued: “It’s important that politicians are paid extremely well so that money has less of an effect on politics”.

What is it about the state of the world today, though, that makes you think that earning a lot of money is protection against corruption? If anything, the opposite is the case—the higher up you go on the income scale—all the way to billionaires like Rinehart and Donald Trump—the more likely you are to engage in various dodgy or corrupt practices to boost your wealth further.

And, again, it isn’t like the massive salaries we pay them now have been any protection against political corruption. If they earned even more and were even more integrated into the elite world of the Australian ruling class, they’d likely become more subservient to their interests.

So none of these objections stacks up.

I want to finish on a positive note. A lot of people love our policy. They’re the kind of people who work hard day in and day out in stressful, massively underpaid jobs and are sick of politicians lecturing workers about the need for “wage restraint” when they’re earning hundreds of thousands of dollars and passing tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations.

One says: “5th year midwife/nurse here! Every $ that goes into my bank account I know I’ve worked hard for serving my community and looking after those most vulnerable—what a joy it would be to have someone in parliament doing the same”.

These are the kinds of people this policy is for, and I’ll be fighting for them if I’m elected to parliament.

This is an edited version of a video made by Victorian Socialists Senate candidate Jordan van den Lamb.