Australia Post paid a single executive more than half a million dollars to ensure he was not poached from the government-owned enterprise to the private sector.
The retention payment, revealed in Senate estimates on Tuesday, was cashed out over a three-year period.
The offer was also taken up by four other senior managers who were being lured by private companies.
Chief executive Paul Graham told the hearing it was not unusual to offer retention packages to staff considering positions elsewhere.
“My view very clearly was that it was appropriate to retain those people … they were being coaxed away by a major competitor and I felt that the damage that their departure would have been done would have been significant and therefore the board approved the retention payment,” he said.
Senior Australia Post executives declined to reveal how much was handed out to all five employees, but did confirm each recipient was a man.
The information came from a line of questioning from Greens senator Sarah Hanson Young, who told the taxpayer owned business the cash handouts were “out of touch”.
It’s not the first time Australia Post has come under fire for it’s spending on executives. Former chief executive Christine Holgate stood down from the role after she confirmed she spent $20,000 on luxury watches for four employees as a thank for securing a big bank deal.
The scandal lead to a Senate inquiry, which senator Hanson Young questioned if the postal group had learned anything from it.
“I urge the Australia Post board to think a bit more clearly about the message they’re sending, particularly when frontline workers are not the ones who are getting the bulk of that money,” she said.
Senators also raised questions on Tuesday about the “staggering” amount of cash handed out to senior staff.
In total, 46 staff were paid bonuses up between $168,000 and $233,000 on average in the last financial year.
But the organisation defended the spend, insisting the payment was not a bonus but a “short term incentive”.
“We certainly don't see them as bonuses at all,” chair Lucio Di Bartolomeo told estimates.
“We have contractual arrangements around remuneration that provides two types of remuneration: One is fixed, and another part is payable subject to performance outcomes.”
Labor’s Anne Urquhart noted that some of the rise in bonuses were six times the rate of inflation.
Just 152 out of 32,755 frontline Australia Post workers earning less than $100,000 a year received a bonus. In 2020, 99 per cent of staff in that award band received a bonus payment.
