The Senate has approved a resolution which provides for salaries equivalent to that of the deputy Prime Minister for the four senior ministers recently named by the Prime Minister.
It was under the Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries (Remuneration and Allowances) Order, 2022 made by the Minister responsible for Finance on the 24th day of March, 2022 under section 5 of the Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries (Remuneration and Allowances).
It makes provision for payment of an annual salary of $181 345.88 to Deputy Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw who also has coordinating responsibility as a senior minister for Infrastructure; Attorney General Dale Marshall as Senior Minister with additional responsibility for coordinating for Governance in Cabinet; Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Dr The Most Honourable Jerome Walcott as senior minister additionally responsible for coordinating for all Social and Environmental Policy and Minister of Energy and Business Development Kerrie Symmonds as senior minister coordinating the Productive Sectors.
The resolution was passed earlier today when the Senate met in a renovated and reconfigured Chamber for the first time.
Gone are the former colonial trappings such as photographs of the monarch, as well as the heavy ornate velvet drapes that once covered the windows of the centuries-old room. Individual desks have replace the two long desks at which Senators once sat on either side of the room. (GC)