Qantas CEO defends his $24 million salary
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has explained his $23.87 million salary a day after he was named as Australia’s top-earning executive.
On Tuesday, Joyce was revealed to be the highest-paid CEO for the 2018 financial year in the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI)’s list, taking home more than 275 times the average national full-time wage.
Speaking at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Joyce said the increase in his realised pay was due to the company’s “exceptional” turnaround at the time.
“My salary is determined by our shareholders. And the reason why – by the way, that information is now over two years’ old, the salary has come down quite significantly since then,” Joyce said.
“But that was because the Qantas share price went from $1 to $6. That’s because our market capital went from just over $2 billion to $10 billion. And our shareholders did exceptionally well out of it.
“Because the shareholders want the CEO and the management to be incentivised to actually turn the company around. And it was, I think, the biggest turnaround in corporate Australian history. That’s why that happened.”
Last month, Joyce’s annual salary was reported at $10 million.
“Qantas remains one of the best-performing airline groups in the world, but executive pay has dropped twice in the two years since the data in this report,” a Qantas spokesman said.
Joyce also addressed the growing rift between businesses and the Scott Morrison government after Ben Morton, assistant minister to the prime minister, said the Coalition did not “represent corporate Australia”.
In an address to the Business Council of Australia on Wednesday, Morton said businesses should look after the “quiet Australians” instead of catering to “armchair activists” and “shock troops” such as GetUp.
“We don’t represent corporate Australia; we represent hard-working middle and aspirational Australia,” Morton said.
“Business should explain how what they are proposing will improve the lives of those quiet Australians we represent.
“And tell us how they will communicate that to these same people.”
Joyce said companies should be able to continue expressing their social and environmental stances, even when they are not in line with government policy.
“That’s democracy and companies are part of democracy, we represent individuals, passengers, employees, shareholders,” he said.
“We should have a voice on that, and it shouldn’t get to a stage if you don’t agree, don’t speak up, because I think that’s bad for democracy.
“I think what the government was saying was that companies should be out there speaking on economic issues as well. My view is we have to do both. We're not going to pull back on what we say on social issues, because that's important to our employees, our customers, our shareholders.
“We clearly saw that there was a big business case – even though it was the morally right thing to do, supporting marriage equality – there was a great business case for it.”
Joyce and Virgin Australia CEO Paul Scurrah also called for the government to impose more regulations on “monopoly airports”, which they accused of reaping profits through excessive charges at the expense of airlines and passengers.
“It absolutely costs a lot more than it should to land an aircraft at these airports,” Joyce said.
“Australia is home to four of the five most profitable airports in the world. Funnily enough, none of these airports rate in the best airports in the world.”