Should Medibank executives get a multi-million dollar pay-rise?

Those lucky Medibank executives are soon to be multi-millionaires following the sale of of Medibank Private whilst regular workers face uncertainty of their job futures.

Experts predict that Medibank Private managing director George Savvides and his band of top executives could expect to triple their already generous salary packages after the sale.

This would mean that Savvides who is currently paid $1.2million per year could have a total salary package balloon to $5million.

It is no wonder why top executives are big fans of privatisation…

The sale of QR National in 2010 saw chief executive Lance Hockridge’s salary increased from $1 million to a whopping $6 million.

Experts say that top executives generally get a two to four times increase following a privatisation depending on what they were paid beforehand and how lucky they are in the process.

In the case of Medibank, group executives Dr Andrew Wilson and Dr Matthew Cullen are now paid $1.85 million, so they could expect their salaries to increase to $3.2 million.

CPSU national secretary Nadine Flood told ABC News that executive salary increases at Medibank could lead to job cuts.

“What we could see is more jobs going to pay fat executive salaries and to provide a return to the new owners.”

The Federal Government is set to reap an estimated $4 billion from the sale.

So what do you think? Do the executives deserve the big pay increase that the privatisation will bring?

And what do you think about executive pay in general? Do you think that it is too excessive?