Labor cuts staff from its own ranks as opposition slams ‘nasty’ move

Anthony Albanese told the opposition that Labor would cut staffing roles, a Coalition figure said, including senior adviser positions.

Anthony Albanese has given the green light to political staffer cuts. Picture: Martin Ollman / NewsWire

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Labor will prioritise political operatives and media advisers over public policy experts in a “recorrecting” of its own staffing ranks, with more than a dozen staffers expected to be dumped from ministers’ offices despite Anthony Albanese’s landslide last May.

Leaders of the Greens and Coalition received letters on Monday confirming they would lose staff, with nearly 20 shadow ministerial positions cut from the opposition, and the Greens seeing a “small” cut to their staffing pool.

Opposition frontbencher James McGrath blasted the move as “vindictive and nasty”, declaring the reduction in particular of senior staffing positions for the Coalition would be damaging for democracy.

“In any good democracy a government needs a strong opposition, and stripping opposition of its staff limits the ability of opposition to hold government to account,” he said.

The Coalition, which split this year and saw the Liberals and Nationals asking for their own separate staffing allocations, will go from having about 106 staff to 87.

Liberal Party senator James McGrath. Picture: Martin Ollman / NewsWire

Lower allocations

However, The Australian understands Labor’s total number of staff will also go down, rather than increase, after its thumping election win, in which it held every one of its seats and made gains across the country.

Although the process is still being finalised, the government is set to reduce its staff by between 10 and 15 positions.

“It is routine practice to revise staff allocations in a new parliamentary term,” a government spokesman said. “Staffing allocations are made based on a range of considerations, including demonstrated need and individual circumstances. The government and opposition staffing allocations have both been lowered.”

It is understood that, while some government offices will go backwards in total staffing allocation, in others staffing numbers will increase, depending on the number of portfolios and the size of the workload for each minister.

Senior government figures heading up the staffing overhaul emphasised they were not looking for a repeat of 2013, when Kevin Rudd purged thousands of jobs across Labor offices and government departments.

Rather than a “slash and burn”, The Australian understands Labor is seeking to “recorrect” staffing allocations agreed to quickly after the 2022 election, in regards to the number of staff and their expertise.

The changes come after Labor won an additional 17 seats and four Senate spots, while the Coalition will this term have 15 fewer MPs and three fewer senators.

Political appointments priority

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson notionally went backwards in staffing with the decision. Picture: Supplied

Ministers are being directed to prioritise political appointments, rather than policy experts, which they are told should be supplemented through the expertise of their departments.

The Australian understands the reason behind this desire for more “political” appointments comes down to the recognition within Labor ranks of errors in the past term of government that could have been more deftly handled had there been more politically adept staff.

While some crossbenchers, such as Jacqui Lambie, retained their same staffing allocation, others such as Pauline Hanson and the One Nation party notionally went backwards.

After Senator Hanson and her colleague Malcolm Roberts each received two staff in the previous term, the government has now decided to assign One Nation a pool of four staff to allocate however the party wishes.

This is despite One Nation gaining two extra senators, with Senator Hanson declaring the move was “capricious and politically motivated”.

“The reduction in personal staff has not been applied equally across all crossbench offices. Instead the Prime Minister has picked winners and losers based on who he likes and doesn’t like,” she said.

“It has been standard practice for crossbench senators and independent lower house MPs to each receive two personal staff. Adequate staffing only applies if the Prime Minister doesn’t deem you a political threat.”

Senator Hanson said she and Senator Roberts would need to “restructure” employment relations in their existing offices, while robbing newly elected senators of critical staffing.

‘Electorate staff’ numbers remain

Last term, the Albanese government increased the number of frontline “electorate staff” to five for every parliamentarian to help them effectively represent the community they were elected to serve.

This allocation remained for the new term of government, so while One Nation doesn’t gain personal staff, its electorate office staffers will increase from 10 to 20 across the party.

The decision to give Senator Hanson a pool of staff, rather than an allocated number per office, is in this term being done in the same way as how the Greens’ staff are allocated.

The Greens have lost some staff, but the leaders’ office did confirm the exact number and The Australian understands the party has fared relatively well despite losing a number of lower house seats.

The Greens have gone from being allocated 3.2 per cent of the government’s allocation to 3 per cent, with the number of overall staff set to reduce because of Labor’s decision to slash its own employees.

Despite this, some Greens sources pointed out that the party was still given too small a staffing allocation, given they represent about 12 per cent of the vote.

The final staffing allocation was revealed just four days before rolling contracts – which political staff are placed on after an election – were due to run out.

The reason for the longer-than-expected delay was because of the desire to review every office and change either the numbers or responsibilities of all of them. “No one office is the same,” a senior Labor source said.

Additionally, the decision to wait nearly eight weeks after the election to make staffing decisions was intended to give staff as much time as possible to decide whether they would take a redundancy or stay on into the next term.

The Australian understands a series of senior government staff, from chiefs of staff to press secretaries, are leaving their jobs.