Dear Department of Agriculture and Water Resources,

I’d like to make an FOI request.

I request a document or documents (likely prepared under s.17 of the FOI Act) that details the year on year increase in remuneration (as a percentage, rounded to the nearest decimal point) paid to each of the Department’s SES staff for the financial years: 2014/15 to 2015/16 and 2015/2016 to 2016/2017 as determined from the group certificates/PAYG summaries issued to those SES staff (pro-rated, to reflect full year amounts, if necessary). I’m not interested in the names of the SES officers and so I’m happy for you to de-identify those. An example to illustrate the type of document(s) I’m seeking acesss to is set out below.

The Department publishes its enterprise agreement which sets out the precise percentage salary increases that can be given to non-SES APSC staff. It follows therefore that there should be no problem for the Department in disclosing the percentage increase in the remuneration levels of its SES staff. Obviously there would be considerable public interest if it were the case that the Department is attacking the real wages, living standards and working conditions of its non-SES public servants, while at the same time granting its SES staff wage increases above that allowable under the enterprise bargaining policy that it enforces against its non-SES public servants. Such information would also be an invaluable insight into the current Commonwealth Government’s views on its preferred distribution of wealth in Australian society for bosses vs workers and would further establish the prevailing view of the current Government that non-SES public servants constitute a lesser form of employee/human being.

Example PAYG Payment Summary Information

SES officer name: John Citizen.
Total remuneration for 2014/15 (taken from relevant PAYG payment summary): $100,000
Total remuneration for 2015/16 (taken from relevant PAYG payment summary): $101,000
Total remuneration for 2016/17 (taken from relevant PAYG payment summary): $103,000

SES officer name: Deborah Smith.
Total remuneration for 2014/15 (taken from relevant PAYG payment summary): $250,000
Total remuneration for 2015/16 (taken from relevant PAYG payment summary): $260,000
Total remuneration for 2016/17 (taken from relevant PAYG payment summary): $280,000

SES officer name: Joseph Pavelic
Total remuneration for 2014/15 (taken from relevant PAYG payment summary): $50,000 (nb. only commenced employment at the Department on 1/1/2015)
Total remuneration for 2015/16 (taken from relevant PAYG payment summary): $107,000
Total remuneration for 2016/17 (taken from relevant PAYG payment summary): $110,000

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Example document produced for purposes of my FOI request using data gleaned from relevant PAYG payment summaries (respectively, per the example data set out above above)

SES Officer identifier: ‘SES officer #1’
Year on year pay increase as a percentage (rounded to nearest decimal point):
2014/15 - 2015/16 = 1%
2015/16 – 2016/2017 = 2%

SES Officer identifier: ‘SES officer #2’
Year on year pay increase as a percentage (rounded to nearest decimal point):
2014/15 - 2015/16 = 4%
2015/16 – 2016/2017 = 7.7%

SES Officer identifier: ‘SES officer #3’
Year on year pay increase as a percentage (rounded to nearest decimal point):
2014/15 - 2015/16 = 7% (note: the officer only commenced employment on 1/1/15, therefore the officer’s total remuneration for 2013/14 has been pro-rated to reflect a yearly amount)
2015/16 – 2016/2017 = 2.8%

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Thanks.