The head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is already Australia's most powerful public servant.
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But Ian Watt is about to gain even more influence: he will soon decide how much his colleagues earn.
The Remuneration Tribunal issued the final report of its review of departmental secretaries' pay yesterday, which proposes to overhaul the way top bureaucrats are paid.
Presently, three secretaries - the heads of PM&C, Treasury and the Defence Department - have salary packages worth $539,580 a year, while the other 17 earn $504,810.
But the tribunal has recommended splitting secretaries into up to seven different pay classifications, an arrangement that will be phased in over the next 2 years.
Dr Watt's total pay package, including superannuation and other benefits, will rise by more than 50 per cent to $825,000 in July 2014.
Treasury head Martin Parkinson's salary package will increase to $805,000.
Dr Watt will decide how much the other secretaries earn, in consultation with Public Service Commissioner Stephen Sedgwick and tribunal chairman John Conde.
By July 2014, the tribunal recommends the lowest-paid secretary have a salary package of $650,000 a year, while the highest paid (outside PM&C and Treasury) will earn $780,000.
An Australian Catholic University academic, Adjunct Professor John Nethercote, warned yesterday the tribunal's decision to divide secretaries into different ranks was ''seriously flawed''.
''It is astonishing that, for so small a group of staff, the tribunal has managed to concoct so many distinctions. This simply leads to needless - and, potentially, endless - jockeying within the pecking order.''
He said the tribunal should eliminate these rivalries, not encourage them by vesting so much power in the PM&C secretary's hands.
The tribunal has long argued that secretaries' pay fails to reflect the importance and complexity of their duties.
This applies especially when compared with the amounts paid to the heads of companies, universities and economic regulators such as the Australian Securities and Investment Commission.
''Secretaries are at the very apex of the Australian Public Service,'' its report says.
''Prime ministers and ministers rely on them for the provision of public services and turn to them for strategic advice about the whole spectrum of domestic and foreign activities, which define our nation, our security, our stability and our quality of life ... [Every] secretary handles a breadth of demands and responsibilities akin to those of the highest executive offices in the private sector.''
Five other Commonwealth agency heads - chief of the Defence Force General David Hurley; tax commissioner Michael D'Ascenzo; Customs chief executive Michael Carmody; auditor-general Ian McPhee; and Australian statistician Brian Pink - have also won substantial pay rises.
Their salary packages will increase by between $170,180 and $240,000 a year.