Prime Minster Rudd's decision to put off tackling ‘obscene' CEO pay packets for another nine months is pandering to the big end of town, Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

"These multi-million dollar CEOs will not be waiting nine months to sack thousands more of their fellow Australians," Senator Brown said.

"The Greens welcome the government's belated decision on ‘golden parachutes' but we will continue to tackle the government's failure to regulate CEO greed, which sees some annual remuneration exceed $10 million. Most CEOs will be considering public hostility to excessive pay packets, but it's the few who give the rest a bad name who require curbing," Senator Brown said.

Today the Greens flagged amendments to the ‘Ruddbank' bills to limit pay to CEOs of beneficiary companies to one million dollars per annum.

Top 10 CEO 2007 Total Remuneration
1 Allan Moss (Macquarie Group) $33,489,818
2 Philip Green (Babcock & Brown) $22,094,631
3 Frank Lowy (Westfield) $15,885,278
4 Wal King (Leighton Holdings) $13,881,005
5 Paul Little (Toll Holdings) $13,429,000
6 Greg Clarke (Lend Lease Corp) $12,280,000
7 Solomon Trujillo (Telstra) $11,782,230
8 Paul Anthony (AGL Energy) $11,262,642
9 Charles Goodyear (BHP Billiton) $11,163,353
10 David Morgan (Westpac) $10,573,442
Average $15,583,840
CEO Pay in the Top 100 Companies:2007 prepared by Riskmetrics (Sept 2008)