UNTOUCHED

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 31, 5 August 1930, Page 9

UNTOUCHED

POLITICIANS' SALARIES

SCULLIN'S DECISION

The Federal • Government docs not intend to reduce the present salaries of Commonwealth. Ministers or of members of the Senate and House of Kopresentatives, says the Prime Minister (Mr. J. H. Seullin).

At present, members of the Senate and Representatives draw £.1000 a year each, and the members of the Cabinet divide an additional sum of roughly £15,000 between them, states the "Sydney Sun."

Mr. Scullia also dealt'with the position of" Federal Civil servants, in rospeet to continuance of their present salaries. Ho was asked what were the Government's intentions on this matter.

"The salaries of Public servants are provided in awards made by an arbitrator, and cannot be altered except by aii amendment of the awards or by a special Act of Parliament," he said.

Mr. Seullin was asked whether the Government intended either to seek an amendment of tho awards or to pass v special Act of Parliament.

His- reply was: "The Government I does not believe that Public servants as such should be singled out from the rest of the community to bear nny special imposition which is not applied to other members of the community receiving the same salaries." WILL CONTINUE ECONOMIES. "Wo shall continue our policy of economising," said Mr. Sculliu. After quoting figures to show savings that tho Government had made, ho asked: "Is it not outrageously untrue to say that we are not cutting expenditure?" He claimed that reductions made in revenue and loan expenditure compared with 1928-29 amounted to well over £5,000,000. Among the savings ho named were £01,000 on migration, £20,000 OE fittings, furniture, and repairs for departmental "buildings, and £1,200,000 in the office of the Governor-General, the High Court, the Public Service Board, tho High Commissioner's Office, and various other departments. In' addition the Government was saving in loan expenditure £113,000 on assisted passages for migrants, more than £250,000 on Canberra, £500,000 on postal works, £1,173,000 on war scrvico homes, and nearly £2,000,000 on other loan expenditure.