Kevin Rudd to rein in corporate greed

PRIME MINISTER Kevin Rudd has launched a worldwide campaign to cut back the huge bonuses handed out to fat-cat bankers and executives.

As he unloaded against "extreme capitalism", Mr Rudd said a new system was needed to control over-the-top payments to financial executives.

Mr Rudd said yesterday that Australian authorities were drawing up a strategy to control spiralling pay packets.

"You've got to act at home and you've got to act abroad on this," he said.

"It is important to get this right as so much greed has lain at the base of the problem we are now dealing with."

As Mr Rudd ramped up the sale of $10.4 billion rescue package in a speech to the National Press Club, he said the flaws in the world market had been exposed through the global financial meltdown.

He said one of the worst examples was payouts to bankers of failed companies.

"I said that financial institutions needed to have clear incentives to promote responsible behaviour rather than unrestrained greed," he said.

This month it was revealed the head of the failed Lehman Brothers bank in the US, Richard Fuld, had received a package worth $690 million since 2000.

Under Mr Rudd's plan the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority will develop a scheme to rein in payments linked to risk-taking.

This would be taken to the international stage with Australia urging the G20 group of leading economies to commission an action agenda with the International Monetary Fund and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull is already onside and called some of the payouts "quite disgraceful