Australia Post CEO Paul Graham grilled in Senate over multimillion-dollar executive pay and soaring bonuses

Australia Post boss Paul Graham says he and his executives deserved their multimillion-dollar pay packets — the highest salaries of all government-linked officials last year.

The chief executive faced a grilling from senators over the $14.7 million paid in 2024-25 to himself and seven other senior executives.

This figure included nearly $6.8 million in bonuses, or at-risk variable remuneration, an amount that was almost double that paid a year earlier.

All eight of the key management personnel took home more than $1.3 million each for the year.

The Opposition previously called the wages “excessive”.

Mr Graham said the increase was partially explained by the figures reflecting people who were with Australia Post for a full year in 2024-25 but not the full 12 months before that.

But he said his team had also met “a range of challenging targets” for the organisation’s performance.

“We had a strong year in relation to hitting the targets that were set by the board,” he told Senate estimates this week.

“The implementation of our Post26 strategy some years ago, the focus on being efficient and reducing costs, as well as improving our service through the significant investments that we have made, resulted in very strong customer support, resulted in us being able to drive substantial savings in our business, reduce the losses in our letter business, and at the same time improve also on our safety performance.”

Australia Post reported a “modest” pre-tax profit of $18.8 million for the year, which was a turnaround from a $42 million loss the previous year. It was the first profit in three years.

The West Australian last month revealed Mr Graham’s $3.3 million pay package topped a list of 18 Commonwealth agency heads earning more than $1 million for the year.