I have always wondered why these people think they are worth the amounts being paid. I would be really interested to hear from one of them as to their reasoning.
Not being one of them or answering on their behalf, it could be something to do with self-entitlement.
"I run the show, so I'm worth X amount. If I can show I have saved some $$$ by cutting here and snipping there, I'm worth a % of the $$$ saved as an added bonus, then I'll go to the remuneration committee and ask for an annual review and bump it up another Y amount of $$$".
Their pay and bonuses are inversely proportional to the company's earnings. In QANTAS's case, the value of the company has halved, work off-shored, people made redundant and profits have dived (due to that pesky operation called International), but AJ and Co have had massive increases in their paypackets and now duplicating management with twice the amount of people to do the same amount of work. It is apparent that management practices over the years have become so inefficient they need to employ more people to do the job. I'm astonished they didn't set up a Management Centre in Bangladesh to save some money.