‘Acting like a medieval king’: PM faces multiparty push on staffing

Politicians across the spectrum are planning to strip Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of power to slash their staffing levels as the Coalition accuses Labor of doling out favour like a medieval king.

But the parties’ unity has already been undermined after the Greens abandoned a push by Senator Fatima Payman for an inquiry into staffing levels.

Liberal senator Michaelia Cash, in the Senate on Wednesday, will present a bill on staffing allocations.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Since the election, the prime minister has cut the number of staff working for Coalition and several minor parties, or failed to increase that number in line with their representation in parliament, limiting opposition MPs’ ability to scrutinise the government and develop policy.

Opposition frontbencher Michaelia Cash will introduce a bill next week to establish an independent body to decide on staffing after accusing Albanese of jeopardising the democratic process when he slashed the number of staff the opposition can employ.

She said the Coalition, crossbench parties and the Greens were “still working through the final details but are in principled agreement that Mr Albanese has politicised this process and will undermine the role of senators”.

Credit: Matt Golding

“Mr Albanese is acting like a medieval king, granting castles and land to his favourite noblemen and shunning those out of favour at his court,” Cash said.

Sources from several minor parties confirmed they planned, on principle, to support Cash’s push, which cannot ultimately become law without Labor’s support.

The prime minister can assign personal parliamentary staff – more senior, higher paid advisers – to MPs by law.For decades, convention meant staffing allocations were standardised across the political spectrum regardless of who was in government.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese arrives for question time in the House on Thursday.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

But Albanese cut the staffing allocations of independents and minor parties to a quarter of what it had been when he was first elected in 2022, and then targeting Coalition and minor parties since his re-election. The Morrison government had previously increased staff levels for minor parties.

Every MP is also allocated five electoral staff, who typically deal with constituency matters, media and stakeholders rather than legislation. The government gave every MP an extra electoral staffer in the previous parliament.

The Coalition joined the outcry over staffing allocation independence – long made by others in the parliament, including crossbenchers Lidia Thorpe, David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie, who avoided cuts this time – when its own allocations were slashed last month.

A government spokesperson said Labor had also had its staff reduced this term, though they did not say by how many. “At the start of this parliamentary term, personal staffing allocations have been reduced for the government, opposition and the Greens,” they said.

The government has previously said the opposition has little right to criticise Albanese’s decision to cut its staff because it had planned to cut public service jobs if it won.

The opposition typically gets 21 per cent of the staff allotted to the government. If that had been maintained, it would have given it more staff per MP because the Coalition won just 43 seats to Labor’s 94.

Australia’s Voice senator Fatima Payman, who defected from Labor last term, said she was the only senator without personal staff, despite repeated requests to the prime minister for more resources.

Payman attempted to establish an inquiry into staffing on Thursday – a move she said had broad support including through “a very unlikely alliance” with One Nation, whose staff remained the same despite adding two more senators – into how the prime minister decided to allocate staff, but it failed at the last moment, 34 votes to 29.

Senator Fatima Payman, pictured in May, has criticised the Greens for backing out of her push for an inquiry.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“An hour before I got onto my feet, my team received notice that the Greens won’t be backing it,” she said. “Now it begs the question, what kind of dirty deal was made that they pulled out last minute?

“[The Greens] talk a big game on transparency and integrity, and this is when it mattered most because we would have been able to investigate what’s really going on, and you back down. Why?”

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said her party was waiting for an independent review of MP staffing from the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service before considering alternative interventions.

The review will examine parliamentary workloads and make recommendations on broad resourcing allocations and support services for offices.

“Australians want politicians to focus on the issues impacting the community, not on ourselves or the trimmings of elected office,” Hanson-Young said.

The 2021 Jenkins review into parliament’s toxic culture found stressed and overworked employees were a risk factor for inappropriate behaviour and a negative work environment.

Payman said she did not have the resources to represent such a large state on every issue, her staff were working 15- to 16-hour days, and they weren’t paid appropriately.

“Regardless of political affiliations, we should all have the same playing field,” she said.

United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet, whose office has also been affected, said the cuts showed Albanese was “a vindictive, shallow man”.

“He promised a more respectful, kinder parliament, but he has delivered the opposite,” Babet said.

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