I don’t believe anyone has said that either…

Then it’s a pity you are involving yourself in a conversation you have not followed or understood. Banquo911 attacked the MPs’ pay, and linked it to their wealth and privilege. If follows that Banquo911 hopes there would be less wealth and privilege if there was lower pay, or else lowering the pay would be irrelevant. That implies a causal connection. If you could grasp how context and previous comments matter in following how these conversations are conducted, you’d have a better experience. It is entirely possible to say things indirectly and yet clearly; it is not necessary to for a thing to be stated explicitly when it is obvious by logic or inference.

Yep, public funding for private schools was a big mistake, but Howard used it to all but destroy public schooling.

They would be serving our country in a way qualitatively different to anyone just doing any job.

Mmmm. Not sure I agree with that in the first place, and I’d argue it’s probably not a good principle to promote.

Government should be boring administrators, not celebrities.

Again, even the current backbencher pay (ca. $230k) is 3-4x median wage, and about top 4% income. Few people would earn more at any point in their lives and the majority will never get anywhere near it.

At the end of the day MP wages are not a big expense in the context of the entire budget, however, there’s a very reasonable perception that they are exceptionally well paid in the context of skills, responsibilities, etc. Paying more is unlikely to make anything better in terms of output, and likely to make things worse in terms of perception.

Ah, the DoGS. That takes me back!

If the garbos down tools, our cities become uninhabitable after a month or so. Under the Coalition the Federal government virtually did nothing for nine years, it left a lot to be fixed but our cities were still inhabitable.

“You were citing the number of wealthy and privileged in parliament as a consequence of the salaries paid,” no I didn’t, I cited the proportion of graduates from private schools in the population and the proportion of MPs that graduated from private schools, then compared the two.

How do MPs serve our country qualitatively in a way that means they should be renumerated more than say a garbo?

You were citing the number of wealthy and privileged in parliament as a consequence of the salaries paid, so you were definitely making a causal link; or else your comment has no point and makes no sense.

Well, that would be sort of be the point. Given how these MPs would be selected, they are very likely to be people who were laying bitumen, nurses, shop assistants , garbos … so paying these MPs extremely well cannot be any slight on those others. Being placed in parliament as our representatives should be recognised. They would be serving our country in a way qualitatively different to anyone just doing any job. If we pay sports stars and entertainers a fortune, there’s far more reason to pay such MPs handsomely.