I watched the debate in parliament over the last three days on the issue of the review of ministerial salary. Both sides presented their case but it basically boiled down to this core position. For the WP, you should apply the principle of service first in considering the setting of ministerial salary which is then further supported by the principles of competitive salary and clean wage. For the PAP position, you should apply the principle of competitive salary first (to get top talent is the justification) before considering the principles of service (done via a discount) and clean wage.
These two diametrically different approaches in applying the three key principles endorsed in the review resulted in two different set of numbers which look practically the same at the fixed salary portion but are worlds apart when you scrutinize the variable portion. Also, it produced two different pegs where the WP's is more inclined to a non-elitist broad-based peg and the PAP's more inclined to a elitist peg looking at the mean of the income of the top 500th and 501th earner.
My view is that WP has offered a olive branch to the PAP by proposing on a conciliatory proposal where the political salary are still high but cap to below $1M (for MR4) even in the max bonus scenario grounded on the principles of public service and non-elitism.
Deep in their hearts and in the hearts of most singaporeans, our political office holders do not necessary need to be the ones that made the most money in their previous careers.
Unfortunately, with characteristics distrust and maybe greed, PAP turned down the chance for bi-partisanship by rejecting the WP proposal but instead harped on the similiarity between the fixed salary portion (from both proposals) to confuse and distract the electorate.
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