CANBERRA, July 17 (Xinhua) -- Australia's top executives are earning more money than at any other point in the last 17 years, a report has found.
The report, published by the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI), revealed that "persistent and increasing bonus payments" were responsible for the growth at a time when wage growth for workers has stagnated.
According to the survey, the median pay for chief executives of Australia's top 100 companies (ASX100) rose 12.4 percent in a year to 4.36 million Australian dollars (3.23 million U.S. dollars) per year.
Median salaries for executives at companies ranked from 101-200 grew even more, up 22.1 percent to 1.76 million Australian dollars (1.3 million U.S. dollars).
Bonus payments rose 18 percent with one in three ASX 100 chief executives taking home at least 80 percent of their maximum bonus.
Louise Davidson, chief executive of the ASCI, sad the results proved that company boards were out of touch with the wider community.
"At a time when public trust in business is at a low ebb and wages growth is weak, board decisions to pay large bonuses just for hitting budget targets rather than exceptional performance are especially tone deaf," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Tuesday.
"This may be a sign that boards have lost sight of the link between a company's social licence and the expectations of communities and investors."
Don Meij, chief executive of Domino's Pizza Enterprises, was the highest-earning chief executives in the ASX200, taking home 36.8 million Australian dollars (27.2 million U.S. dollars) in financial year 2017.
The report said that there were too few women chief executives to analyze the gender pay gap, noting that "there were more CEOs called Andrew in the ASX100 sample than women."
