What you said about former Labor MPs and staff facing pay cuts after Qld election loss

Labor’s surviving MPs are set to go from the penthouse to the outhouse – and many couldn’t be happier. HAVE YOUR SAY

Former premier Steven Miles with then ministers Meaghan Scanlon (left) and Shannon Fentiman

Labor’s surviving MPs are set to go from the penthouse to the outhouse – and many couldn’t be happier.

More than 100 Labor staffers who work across 18 ministerial portfolios will face the axe, including personal drivers, media managers and policy writers.

All surviving ministers, including Opposition Leader Steven Miles and his deputy leader, will be left with a mere 23 employees combined.

Each Labor MP will be left to their own devices, faced with organising their own diaries, phone calls and transport.

They will be forced to find their own information in the absence of offices full of research teams and data collectors, instead relying on public and media reports.

“It’s like going from the penthouse to the outhouse,” a political source said.

Gone are the plush leather chairs and executive desks furnishing the historic offices in the old sandstone wing of Queensland Parliament.

The cramped but grand offices afforded to ministers of the Crown – just steps away from the Legislative Assembly – will be no more.

Instead, Labor frontbenchers will be banished to a floor of upgraded, but plain, offices on level nine of the Parliamentary Annexe.

About 14 former ministers will take a $125,309 pay cut when they become opposition spokespeople.

News of the impending cuts sparked celebrations from some readers who enjoyed the demise of Labor.

Others, though, feared nothing would change with the switch of government, claiming politicians are overpaid.

See what you had to say and join the conversation below >>>

WHAT YOU SAID

Nothing changes

Peter

Taxpayers will still foot the same bill when the LNP moves in.

Carnbee

This article could have been written in reverse: how LNP Ministers will be aggrandised. In other words, elections have consequences, well known in advance, for all its participants and hangers-on.

Gman

Very funny.

The LNP is now just Labor Lite.

The former MPs will be seamlessly reabsorbed back into the Public Service where they all came from.

Steve

Omg, how will they cope, still overpaid by the sounds of it.

Deputy Cameron Dick (foreground) faces a $111,000 pay cut.

So long, Labor

Andrew

No more private jets off to birthday parties.

John

You’ve made my day! It’s been a great few days. The thought of Labor people losing the perks of office is so good.

Alan

Miles will have to cut his sandwiches and pack his own lunch.

Kaymar

Couldn’t happen to a better bunch of people!

Still a mess

Sandi

Should have happened 4 years ago. It makes one ponder as to why the LNP are consistently pathetic with the selection of their campaign organisations.

Neil

and after 2 terms they can get a pension of how much?

HarryB

They are still getting paid too much.

david

Never fear, they all retire as multi millionaires. Incompetence is a benefit in politics.

Kim

Their reduced remuneration is still much more than what they are worth.

Originally published as What you said about former Labor MPs and staff facing pay cuts after Qld election loss