Fed: Abbott says complaints about pay cut were joke

AAP General News (Australia)
04-27-2008
Fed: Abbott says complaints about pay cut were joke

CANBERRA, April 27 AAP - No one should go into politics for the money, former Howard
minister Tony Abbott says.

Mr Abbott tried to laugh off his complaints about the $90,000 pay cut he took when
the Howard government was tossed out of office last year.

The comments, coupled with his criticism of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's pay freeze
for federal politicians, earned Mr Abbott a party room rebuke earlier this year.

But today, he said he had been joking.

"I was asked a question, and I gave a jovial answer to the effect that one of the groups
suffering mortgage stress thanks to the Rudd government were former Howard government
ministers," Mr Abbott said, laughing.

"It was a light-hearted answer."

Politics was not about earning a big salary, he said.

"No one should go into politics for the money," he told the Ten Network.

"And one of the reasons why politics is a genuine vocation, not always recognised by
the public in those terms, but why it is in fact a genuine vocation - a noble calling
- is because no one would do it for the money."

The base salary for backbenchers is $127,000 a year.

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KEYWORD: ABBOTT

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