While it is appropriate that the Australian government guarantees the banks, it must be remembered that it is using the money of hard working Australian people to do so. This money is a result of Australian working families working Monday and most of Tuesday for the government then relying on the remainder of the week to pay their own bills. It is only fitting because of this sacrifice that Australians make, for the sake of the public good, that executives of the major banks curb their salaries because they are now the benefactors of this taxpayer support for their institutions.

In simple terms, if all Australians are taking a haircut then they should too, especially now that they are relying on the taxpayer to support them. In a financial crisis we all need to tighten our belts. This includes bank executives. In the U.S. people have been rightly outraged by salary packages approaching half a billion dollars for Dick Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers which has since gone broke. Although none of this excess is apparent in Australia, a lesser sentiment surrounding the same issue is certainly present.

There is a huge difference between someone who has set up their own business and is a benefactor of the wealth it produces, to someone who works for predominantly someone else's business and is merely an appointment of that organisation. Of course, if it is your business and you set it up under your own personal resources then you should be allowed to attain whatever wealth it generates, however the executive of a public company is an appointee to the entity, a servant like any other employee. They are benefiting from the expertise of generations before and the hard work of fellow employees. It is a sad state of affairs when the executive salaries that some receive could lead a person to believe that it was actually their business and not the business they were working for.

Executives are there to serve the shareholders who put them there and pay their salary. Now that taxpayer funds guarantee banks, executives are now also accountable to the taxpayer.

The current financial crisis will have further chapters into the future, and this may require further public support of our banking institutions. It would be good public policy and politics on the executives' part to closely examine their packages so that they are comprehendible and acceptable to the taxpayer whose money will be used to support the institution that they have charge over and which in turn pays their salary.

All Australians look forward to bank executives doing the right thing and tightening their belts in this time of financial crisis.

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