Our Media Glass House researchers believe recent reporting by The Australian proves something is missing from the Murdoch media’ national broadshit.
To give you an idea of their thinking, take a look at the front page of The Weekend Australian from 3 June. (main image)
You’ll notice the front-page story, and a scary headline to match, telling readers all about the dangers that Australia’s business lobby claims will flow from a just-announced rise in the minimum wage.
Business leaders and peak bodies were not happy with the decision by the Fair Work Commission to increase pay rates for workers on the minimum wage. Let’s repeat that – the minimum wage.
Business warned about all the horrible things that the wage rise would do to the national economy, job security, inflation, and just about anything else that lives or breathes across our country.
Our MGH teams note that The Australian has been giving such claims by business groups a pretty good run when it comes to anything that might be related to or lead to wage rises, for instance check out the 8 June story in The Oz on the Albanese Government’s proposed “same job/same pay” industrial relations reforms. (below)
Even yesterday’s edition of The Oz also contained yet another scary story about the IR reforms, giving prominence to business claims of a $13 billion hit to the economy. (below)
Yesterday’s edition of The Oz also ran a page 6 lead lambasting wage rises negotiated by public sector unions with the Queensland Government. (below)
So what’s missing from The Australian, according to our MGH teams?
The answer, they tell us, can be found on page 2 of the broadshit’s edition published yesterday. (below)
There you’ll find a sliver of a story that tells readers that senior executives – managing directors and CEOs – in Australian listed companies enjoyed double-digit pay rises over the past year.
Yes, while works struggle with cost-of-living pressures and are grateful for pay increases of a just a few percent just to keep up with inflation, if they are lucky, senior execs “pocketed average pay rises more than double the rate of inflation”.
The story said base salaries of managing directors across ASX-listed companies rose 14% on average and salaries for CEO’s increased an average of 15%, based on figures from a report by the Governance Institute of Australia.
The Institute’s report also revealed that the average fixed remuneration of for a managing director of the top 200 ASX-listed companies was $1.58 million. How do they make ends meet?
Our MGH teams wonder why, if The Oz is so concerned about the impact of rises in remuneration, why it didn’t feature that story more prominently. Maybe on page 1?
They also wonder why executives’ pay packets can always somehow mysteriously rise by such significant amounts seemingly without much effort on their part, while people on the minimum wage must rely on adjudications by tribunals such as the Fair Work Commission after lengthy arguments for and against have been heard or after tough negotiations with employers.
So, to answer the question posed by our MGH researchers, what’s missing from The Australian is a simple thing called balance.
But they guess you already knew that from reading almost any story on any subject appearing in The Oz.
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