Brash's 2.4pc worth $11,500

By JOHN ARMSTRONG political editor

The Reserve Bank wants you to know Don Brash got a pay rise of only 2.4 per cent last year - not a hefty 5.6 cent.

The bank is worried people will come up with the latter figure after reading its annual report, published yesterday. They risk doing so because of the confusing way the Governor's salary has previously been presented in that document.

But even with a 2.4 per cent increase he did not escape unscathed from critics within the Government who had demanded he exercise the same degree of restraint shown by workers who have settled collective agreements at around 3 per cent.

Prime Minister Helen Clark caustically noted that some people, including her, "may see some irony" in Dr Brash's getting an $11,500 increase after his trenchant warnings about big pay rises. "It is about the going rate, but it also comes on top of a pretty handsome salary."

The Reserve Bank says Dr Brash's salary rose in the year to last July from $485,000 to $496,500.

But the previous year's report put his "total remuneration" at $470,000, not $485,000, indicating a pay rise of $26,500, or 5.6 per cent.

The report omitted the fact that for most of that year Dr Brash was actually getting $485,000.

The $470,000 figure was what he "cost" the bank that year. In other words, it was his average salary.

The bank admits it is possible to "misinterpret' the salary information. The "apparent discrepancy" stemmed from a one-off effect of Dr Brash's previous employment contract.

During his second term as Governor, which ended in August 1998, Dr Brash did not receive any salary adjustments at all. Instead, his salary was held unchanged until a catch-up adjustment was made two months into the 1998-99 financial year.

The fuss over his salary has overshadowed the raises earned by his two immediate underlings, deputy governors Murray Sherwin and Dr Rod Carr, who received a minimum $20,000 extra - or around 7.4 per cent - last year. The pair earned between $290,000 and $300,000.

The bank refused to discuss their salaries, but it said Dr Brash's 2.4 per cent was the same as the average increase received by staff employed under the bank's collective contract.

Since becoming Governor in 1988, his total remuneration had also increased at an average annual rate of 4 per cent, close to the nationwide average of 3.7 per cent for private sector wage and salary earners.

Helen Clark, meanwhile, said cabinet ministers would not accept a salary rise for MPs that was anywhere near the 9.5 per cent that Act leader Richard Prebble is speculating will be determined by the Higher Salaries Commission next month.

"I certainly won't be accepting 9.5 per cent and I doubt any minister would," she said.

"I am more than adequately compensated for the seven-days-a-week I do. I wouldn't like to look at the hourly rate, but we don't do these jobs for the money."

She said something around the average "going rate" would be appropriate as a pay rise.