THE Federal Government is keen to prune the hefty salaries of some of agriculture's leading research and marketing chiefs, arguing pay packets which run rings around the Prime Minister's wage can no longer be justified.
While our major agricultural commodities like beef, wool, dairy and grains are all struggling to cope with depressed markets, the people managing big rural research and development corporations like Australian Wool Innovation, Grains Research and Development Corporation, Meat and Livestock Australia and Dairy Australia are all pocketing big dollars.
In the firing line are salaries like that of GRDC managing director, Peter Reading, who in the past financial year was paid between $570,000 and $584,000.
It's believed Mr Reading's salary has been reduced by 20 per cent this year, taking it to somewhere between $456,000 to $467,200.
While there has been no comment from any of the R&D organisations, sources say Brenda McGahan's annual package at Australian Wool Innovation is close to $400,000, and David Palmer at Meat and Livestock Australia reportedly pulls in more than $433,000.
According to the annual report of Dairy Australia, which like most other R&D organisations has bundled the figures on director pay into one, the total paid to managing director, Mike Ginnivan, last year before he stepped down is estimated to be more than $350,000.
At the Cotton RDC, executive director, Bruce Finney, was last year paid between $220,000 and $235,000, while at the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (which was one of the major casualties in this year's federal budget) the 2008-09 director salary paid to boss, Peter O'Brien, was between $285,000 and $299,999.
By comparison Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, earns about $340,000 a year, while the Opposition leader, Tony Abbott, is paid about $242,000 a year.
In a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra last week, the federal Agriculture Minister, Tony Burke, said he has called for a Productivity Commission review into the governance, efficiency, and duplication issues surrounding the research and development corporations, flagging his frustration that despite requests this year to improve the way these organisations spend their money, in his opinion little progress had been made.
Mr Burke said some research and development corporations had ignored his request to remove duplication and cut down on some "obscene" executive salaries.
He said there was a minority of R&D corporations paying salaries which "do not pass the test of credibility" and he was determined to ensure farmers in the paddock who pay huge sums in levies every year "see value for money".
"A minority of research and development corporations are paying their senior executives salaries which I believe do not pass the test of credibility for use of taxpayers’ money," Mr Burke said.
"We have one of these organisations where the CEO earns more than $500,000 a year; we have five earning more than the Prime Minister of Australia. Of these five, three of them are organisations that employ fewer than 100 people.
"I can't justify to a drought-stricken farmer that this is a good use of the compulsory levies they are being made to pay.
"I can justify professional salaries that are required to do a professional job and the organisations that I refer to are run professionally. But I cannot justify half a million dollars a year. I have asked on different occasions for somebody to explain to me why the responsibility taken on by people in these jobs is seen as being more important or more significant than the job of being Prime Minister of Australia. And nobody has been able to come back with an argument which I believe is halfway credible."
Mr Burke said he wants to make sure that in a system where farmers are paying levies they can see "absolute efficiency in their levy dollars going to research and development and to marketing".
"Compulsory levies, especially in hard times, amounts to a tax in their view and I want them to see value for money and to know that no one is taking advantage of that situation."
Mr Burke cited examples of duplication which also had to go, explaining each R&D organisation has their own office with their own premises, including their own CEOs, independent payroll, administration and conference rooms.
He took aim also at the structure of some organisations, in particular AWI, which he said had become too agri-political.
Opposition spokesman for agriculture, John Cobb, said the address by Mr Burke had given "credence to disturbing rumours" of a major Government funding cut to agriculture research.
He said there were also rumours of a push for "greater Government control" to direct industry research bodies into what type of research they can carryout, but he would not give further details on the allegations.
Mr Cobb said he had heard there were moves afoot to abolish its matching dollar for dollar funding with industry research bodies, and replace the funding with a 150 per cent tax deduction, but this has been denied by the Government.
He also said the Government was trying to exert greater control over what research the industry funded bodies could undertake.
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