Our endangered top earners in need of saving

There was nothing on TV the other night, so I took Gerry Brownlee's advice and turned on the computer to "buggerise on Facebook".

As Colin Hogg said, "On TV these days, if they're not cooking it, they're killing it." Or singing and dancing about cooking and killing it.

To be fair, Close Up had just done an item on higher salaries that entertained me. Prompted by Andrew Ferrier's $8.2 million payment by Fonterra, the earnings of the country's top executives is news of the week yet again. I use the words "entertained" and "news" begrudgingly. Likewise "earnings".

But I'm wondering if we're not enviously looking at the salaries of our chief executives all wrong. Actually, I'm quite worried about our top earners. Like rare and endangered species, I think they need saving. Intervention is required if they aren't going to go the way of the giant moa or dodo.

I don't think we appreciate the responsibilities of our CEOs. For a start, their job descriptions are so . . . so . . . universal. They have a galaxy of responsibilities to navigate through.

Black holes surround them everywhere. It's no fun being an awesome supernova when your blinding brightness burns up everything and everyone who comes into your orbit.

The hours they work are immense. How do they sleep? I mean, when do they sleep? Like their bank balances, the clock is always ticking over. Likewise their brains.

Just carrying around a head so obviously weighed down with intelligence and knowledge and facts and figures has to be a strain on the neck. Their brains are packed in so tight, their skulls must ache. Continuously. Not to mention all the blunt knives sticking out of their backs. No wonder they can't sleep.

They are working themselves into early graves. Their well-appointed coffins will be of no comfort to them, or their families.

No, the more I think about it, being a CEO is not for me.

I think I'll aspire to something a little more lowly, say, prime minister. Certainly that's the message you get when you look at their comparative salaries.

If the prime minister of our entire country is worth $411,510 each year, why does the Education Ministry head get $520,000? And why does Auckland University vice-chancellor get $640,000?

If Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee gets $257,800 as a Cabinet minister, why does Christchurch City Council chief executive Tony Marryatt get more than $500,000? Isn't Gerry's job more important at the moment?

And why, oh why, did Auckland Council chief executive Doug McKay earn twice the prime minister's salary last year?

 Imagine the conversations. "Mr McKay, I've got the prime minister on the phone for you."

"Tell him I'm busy, doesn't he know I've got a council twice as important as his country to run?"

Benchmark their salaries I say, with the top dog being the prime minister.

Reports have put the average private sector chief executive's salary in New Zealand at $315,000. Yet in the public sector, the average has been shown to be $340,000. This is reassuring. It means we can do something about it.

Jobs are becoming so big no amount of money can compensate them. Where once there were two jobs, now there is one, and that one person is working harder and longer than ever.