The Opposition Leader and the Shadow Finance Minister have today offered two sharply different versions of Coalition policy on executive remuneration.
According to the Shadow Finance Minister Senator Barnaby Joyce, speaking on Sky News, the Coalition does not have a policy on executive remuneration:
ASHLEIGH GILLON: As Shadow Finance Minister, do you think that that two strikes policy should be something that was included in the report?
JOYCE: Well, once more, we never brought up a problem, we never discussed executive salaries. This is their gig. This is the issue that they said that they were going to deal with.
However, at a doorstop in Sydney today the new Opposition Leader outlined what he claims is in fact Coalition policy on executive remuneration:
JOURNALIST: Your thoughts on the Productivity Commission's report on executive salaries?
TONY ABBOTT: If Kevin Rudd was fair dinkum, he wouldn't have sent this off to yet another inquiry and he wouldn't be very happy with yet another inquiry report which is all about process and not about performance. What the Coalition thinks is that we should have proper shareholder control over companies, and that means a shareholder vote on directors and other senior executives' remuneration.
The fact that the Shadow Finance Minister and the Opposition Leader cannot agree on something as simple as if they have a policy on executive remuneration shows how chaotic and erratic the Coalition has become.
Two of the three most senior economic ministers in the Coalition’s leadership team are now split right down the middle on executive remuneration.
This sort of chaotic and erratic policy on the run shows exactly why you can’t trust what Mr Abbott says, he simply makes it up as he goes along.
The Opposition Leader should come out today and admit either he got it wrong on executive remuneration or the Shadow Finance Minister got it wrong.
In this instance both men cannot be right. One of them was simply making up policy on the run and not sticking to the facts.
4 January 2010