Further, these are society’s resources which society chooses to allocate to people on various conditions. One of those conditions should be to report on their reallocation to others as remuneration.

If peoples’ high pay is justifiable presumably the recipients are able to justify it.

All US public officials’ pay is public, which I think is a good practice.

Obviously there’s not sufficient news happening on the planet so the Murdoch scribes are being ordered to cobble together a beat-up story about an unimportant and irrelevant matter. The dumbing down process never ceases.

No doubt several media wannabees imagine they could do an equal or better job than Jones. He makes the Lateline gig look like a cinch, he does it seamlessly - that’s a special skill, it’s worth serious money. Abbott lacks the backbone to front up to Jones across the Lateline desk - or on Q&A - that says plenty.

ABC is a goverment body and should not be trying to compete with private sector salaries. CEOs get paid more than Departmental secretaries and while occasionally this gets trotted out as an excuse to increase SES salaries it is also irrelevant. It only means private sector salaries are too high at that level and the shareholders have little power to control the largesse of the Senior boys club and networks. Public servants are paid according to the work level standards ie. APS1-APS6, EL1s and EL2s and then the SES levels. This is in the public domain. Why is ABC any different? Mind you trying to find out which public servants got performance bonuses, how much and what KPIs were met is also impossible and shouldn’t be.

Exposure is not the only answer — there may be a role for an internal body to oversee equity within the ABC, and relative to market standards, and reassure the community that the team is fairly paid and not exploited.

To attract talent then the ABC has offer competitive salaries.

The terms of the salary is a different matter and the OZ played up the BBC problems that the BBC presenters have companies and thus pay corporation taxes rather than personal income taxes and /or these companies are registered companies in tax havens so a Public Corporation (Trust)is abetting tax avoidance.

Often broadcasters have % salaries, ie the work for the ABC or maybe 2 days a week and for Fairfax for 3 and so on so salary declaration is difficult and perhaps confidential to the tax department.

Then of course there a third party payments such as commercials- does the revenue to to the ABC or to the individual.

I note that GF50 has a vendetta against Annabelle and Mark Scott, that is misguided, but what I do agree with GF50 I agree that the ABC is increasingly a pawn for News Ltd.

I want to know what third party payments are made to Piers Akerman for example as he and Gerrard Henderson were the reason for the poor Insiders poor ratings not Cassidy.

The AWB capitualtion on the 0730 was a disgrace to be hoodwinked and bullied into joining a beatup was inescusable and the producers of 0730 need some counselling on media ethics.

This is all a part of the Murdock campaign to spook the ABC in an election year - they have done it before here, the US and UK.

Today a WSJ article reprinted in the Business OZ ( L. Gordon Crovitz) suggesting the al-Jazzeera reflects the Views of the Emir - well doesn’t Fox News reflect the views of Murdoch and the Tea Patry and lacking balance in reporting the Arab Spring?

The reporting of the recent US election was not what I would call balanced either?

Berating Gore - its a bit late, he sold Current TV at a nice premium and gave al Jazzera access to cable which is dominated by Fox.

Perhaps Gore is now glad that Fox started the ” shards “campaign in Florida that saw GW Bush appointed President.

But America would be a better place today has he been elected. - No wars. no debit,no unwinnable wars…..

High Court stuff I suspect.

Has anyone any info on whether Murdoch has tried this on with the BBC - his ultimate bete-noir?

Obviously ABC management believes the talent is worth the negotiated figure on their contract otherwise it wouldn’t have been ratified. Whether the taxpayers approve or not is irrelevant. No good can come from making this information public.

The more interesting story would be the salaries paid by commercial networks to tie-up talent no longer appearing on air - thereby preventing the opposition snaffling them. High profile talent being paid to stay home - that’s the story I’d prefer to read.

This is simply someone taking advantage of the public accountability and freedom of information we have to protect our democracy. The system is being abused.