MEMBERS' PAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 139, 15 June 1938, Page 13

MEMBERS' PAY.

FEDERAL PARLIAMENT RESTORED TO £1000 P.A. MR. LYONS TO RECEIVE £4000. (From Our Own Correspondent.) CANBERRA, June 8. Australia, Federal and State, is generally critical of Governments and Parliaments who increase Parliamentary salaries. Federal memljcrs Ix-gn ri in 1901 with private members' salaries of £400 a year. A few years later the allowance was raised to £ti(H>. and after •the war to £1000. During the depression these allowances were subject to substantial percentage reductions, the last of which were restored this month almost entirely without objection. Hitherto the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth has received about £2500 a year, out of which he has had to meet certain Parliamentary expenses. Certain members of the Civil Service receive more, and salaries in business rise much higher. For the future the Prime Minister (Mr. Lyons) will receive £1000 instead of £740 in Parliamentary allowance, about £1500 for his Ministerial position, and a similar amount as a special grant—making about £4000 in all. The increase is publicly approved. Democracy, it i s observed, requires to attract the best brains to its management. Ministers, other than the Prime Minister, are guaranteed about £2000 a year.