Pinstriped pirates pocket biggest pay

Share prices have been trashed, an international recession looms, baby boomers have watched their retirement plans drift out of sight and the only bright spot on the national horizon is Kevin Rudd's ever-present blue tie.

Whenever I complained of my lot as a teenager, my grandmother would shake her finger at me and say: "Just thank God you didn't go through The Depression."

Perhaps I'm about to find out what she meant, but there is one blessed group which will continue to sip Veuve Clicquot and slurp down oysters while the rest of us fight over crusts.

As the sharemarket slipped and then slid and finally spiralled into the inky depths of despair, this group asked itself if it deserved a pay rise. After several seconds of intense deliberation, its members decided that indeed they did, agreeing that they had done such a splendid job for their shareholders that the least they could do was to help themselves to a few more fistfuls of lolly while there was some to be had.

I refer, of course, to the senior executives of our larger companies.

When share prices rise, they point to the flickering numbers on the stock exchange screens to justify voting them and their mates massive salary increases.

Does this mean then that as share prices fall, these salaries decline accordingly?

Apparently it doesn't work that way.

Geoff Dixon, the head of Qantas, certainly won't be taking a pay cut as he heads into retirement even though the airline's share price has been slashed in the past six months. Mr Dixon, who steps down next month, will take home $11.92 million this year.

This makes him the second-highest paid airline executive in the world, not a bad deal when you consider that Qantas is a small player on the aviation stage and that the man who runs the biggest airline in the world, American Airlines, only earns $6.1 million.

Last year, Mr Dixon made only $6.5 million so his pay has increased by as much as the share price has fallen. Nice work if you can get it.

In Queensland John Mulcahy, head of local banking and insurance giant Suncorp, has watched as earnings per share have tumbled from $1.59 to 60 and profits have fallen by half.

While this happened, his salary rose from $5.3 million in 2007 to $6.2 million in 2008.

Try telling your boss that because the company is making half as much money as it was a year ago, he should give you a 20 per cent pay rise.

The chief executive of shopping centre owner Centro, Andrew Scott, who distinguished himself by running the worst-performing property trust in the country - well done, Andrew - was finally shown the door at the beginning of the year. He left, however, with $3 million tucked under his arm.

The trust's units, priced at $7.50 a year ago, are now all but worthless.

Mike Tilley, who did a fantastic job for his shareholders by driving the Challenger Financial services group to a $44 million loss, left after serving 10 months of a five-year contract. The pain of unemployment, however, was leavened by the $10 million he took with him when he left.

Macquarie Bank shares have fallen from their once lofty heights, which isn't likely to bother chief executive Nicholas Moore overly, given that he pocketed $26.7 million this year, small change when compared with the $50 million package gifted to his successor, Allan Moss.

National Australia Bank's John Stewart, who oversaw the bank's disastrous exposure to the American mortgage market, left after four years in the job with $10 million in his bulging briefcase. And Foster's boss Trevor O'Hoy, who sat in the big chair while the company wrote the value of its wine business down by $700 million, left with $3.7 million.

The more you screw up, the greater the disaster over which you preside, then the more money you get. There's no accountability. Just gouge as deeply as you think you can and then make a run for the door.

Prime Minister Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan have mumbled about limiting executive salaries. Nothing will ever come of it. It was pure political lip service but it doesn't matter because it's not the point.

The point is that there is an appalling lack of boardroom morality in this countr