The new head of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's signature policy initiative – the National Innovation and Science Agenda – will be paid more than $400,000 a year for their efforts leading the $1.1 billion initiative, a recent Remuneration Tribunal determination shows.
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The tribunal this month decided the pay packets for the yet-to-be-appointed chief executives of both Innovation and Science Australia and the $5 billion Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility.
While both positions' base pay packets came in under the $300,000 mark, the chief executive leading Mr Turnbull's top election policy pledge – an Australian "ideas boom" – should secure $414,930 a year for the first three years on the job, courtesy of a $50,000 a year bonus.
Similarly, the incoming head of NAIF will take home a tidy $410,570 a year during the loan program's "financial assistance phase", until June 30, 2021, despite a base salary of $266,870 a year.
The addition of two more senior executives to the Australian Public Service may grate on many Canberra public servants who have been waiting more than two years for a new enterprise bargaining agreement, including a potential pay rise, to be struck.
The tribunal's determination shows the new ISA chief will get a base salary of $285,930, with total remuneration of $391,680.
But that figure comes to $414,930, when the "additional fixed loading of $50,000 for a period of three years" is included.
A Department of Industry spokesman said the process to recruit permanent chief executives for both government agencies was "in progress".
