They only serve to torment, misinform and provide ammunition for whingers. What commuters don't know, they can't complain about. Ian McKee, Leichhardt. Twenty years ago the top salary for a classroom teacher was equivalent to the salary paid to a backbencher in the NSW Parliament. Now, the backbencher is pulling in more than twice as much as the teacher.
Australian politicians are among the most highly paid politicians in the world.
Their pay exceeds those of their counterparts in the rest of the OECD, while our teachers remain the lowest-paid. Our dollar is the most undervalued currency in the developed world and the reason is because we are seen as an old economy, reliant on commodities and resources. We may kid ourselves that we are quick to latch on to new technologies, but most of that technology has to be imported. That's what counts. The Federal Government has sabotaged our scientific research and scuttled our public education system.