Coronavirus (COVID-19)!

Australian politicians, top State and Territory bureaucrats, and big business Executives must commit to temporarily forfeit their salaries or take substantial pay-cuts as a show of solidarity with the one million Australians who have lost their jobs due to the Coronavirus pandemic. 

Australian Senators and Members of Parliament (MPs) each receive a basic salary of $200,000+/year. The Prime Minister's allowance is $500,000+, and the leader of the Opposition also gets over $350,000 per year by way of basic salary and allowance. At State level for example, the Victorian Premier is the highest-paid at $440,000+. All Victorian MPs receive a basic salary of $182,000+.

While we appreciate the hard-work that our leaders are doing to keep Australia safe, it is important they are also seen to commiserate with those who have lost their sources of income.

We keep hearing from our leaders that "We are all in this together". This however risks to pass as merely 'cheap talk' if those who are among the highest paid in our country continue to draw their full salaries while the millions of us are long-queuing at Centrelink, uncertain if we can afford the basics - food, rent, utilities - even as we heed Government(s) call to stay at home. 

COVID-19 has taken us all by storm. Businesses have closed. Jobs have been lost. We need our political leaders, business executives and top bureaucrats to do something symbolic, something that truly shows "we are all in this together". 

You can (temporarily) donate substantial portions of your salaries and allowances to charities and food banks working hard to support the vulnerable and now jobless Australians. A lot of good can be done if all Parliamentarians, Ministers, State Premiers, Territory Chief Ministers and their top bureaucrats, business executives and other well paid Australians shared a little bit of what they draw to support others.

We are all trying to do the right thing - enhanced hygiene habits, social distancing, self-isolation or enforced quarantine, everyone doing their bit. We all agree none of us expected the disruptions this virus has wrought on our Australian way of life. Let alone the economic uncertainties it is presenting not only to Australia, but the rest of the world!