bring some sanity to this thread:

I was DSTA scholar. 1st class honours and masters degree.
started in 2007 at 3.2k
left once bond ended in 2011 at 5.5k. there were two major salary scale adjustments while I was there, so do not assume annual increment to be that high. normal annual increment was around 5%.

prospect was probably good for me as scholar, but personally wanted new challenges other than just continuing with defence-related project work, for which the skills were, frankly, not that easily transferable. most fellow scholars left soon after bond due to similar considerations.

but some of the posts here regarding salary increment seem out of this world, unless DSTA has changed so much in these few years