Flacks swap sides

WHEN the Coalition lost the federal election last November, 480 ministerial staff members suddenly found themselves out of work, as did a large number of electorate officers employed by Liberal marginal-seat backbenchers.

With Labor in office in every state and territory there wasn't exactly a plethora of political jobs they could move on to.

At one level, the loss of apparatchik positions available to Liberal flacks would have been welcomed, given the over-representation in parliamentary ranks by former staff. The election defeat meant a whole generation of political hangers-on were forced to gain experience in some other profession before one day pursing a political career of their own.

And that is what many political staff members go on to do.

Academic research has found the number of MPs with staffing experience is as high as 30 per cent. Just 50 years ago it was less than 1 per cent. This remarkable change has come about as a result of large increases in the number of taxpayer-funded advisers through the decades.

Concerns have been raised for years that the professionalisation of politics is, as John Howard put it in 2003, shrinking the gene pool from which parties draw their talent.

Political scientists Wayne Errington and Narelle Miragliotta have conducted an occupational profile of members of parliament, presenting a paper on the subject at the Australasian Political Studies Conference in Brisbane earlier this year. They found the "large increase in political staffing as a pre-parliamentary occupation distorts the representation of other occupations".

In other words, more political staff has led to a less diverse parliament.

With the Howard government's defeat, most unemployed advisers looked to the private sector to earn a crust. But only the well-rounded found jobs. After all, what does a partisan from the Liberal camp offer a business required to deal with wall-to-wall Labor governments?

Peter Costello's senior economic adviser, Alan Anderson, went to work for leading consultancy group McKinsey & Company. Howard's media adviser, David Luff, is spinning for Telstra. But most weren't so fortunate. The dark arts of political spin are not easily transferable.

Even Howard's former chief of staff, Tony Nutt, has had to retreat into the state director's job in Victoria.

That is why the unexpected election of Colin Barnett as the Premier of Western Australia was seen as a turning point for the besieged Liberal Party. Suddenly, 200 ministerial staffing positions in the west were up for grabs.

However, just as the Rudd Government took the symbolic gesture of cutting staffing positions by nearly 30 per cent when it was elected, so too the new Liberal Government in the west reduced its number of ministerial staff to 150.

When governments hire political advisers, they set up a committee to vet the applications. The committee is colloquially referred to as a star chamber, named after the unforgiving medieval star chamber in England that oversaw the operation of lower courts. In Howard's government, the star chamber was ruthless and excluded applicants who threatened to undermine the discipline of the government.

Many a good candidate put forward by newly appointed ministers was shot down because of something they had said or done in a previous life.

Barnett's star chamber has not functioned quite so cautiously. Nine of the 17 media advisers employed in ministerial offices under Barnett previously worked for the Carpenter Labor government.

This is unusual in modern politics. The main parties today are tribal, untrusting of professionals who have worked for the other side. You have to question Barnett's decision to hire the people who spun Labor into so much trouble at the WA election. After all, Carpenter lost the west's version of John Hewson's 1993 "unlosable election".

New Police Minister Rob Johnson is the worst offender; he hired not one but two former Labor advisers. Even more surprisingly, both worked for Eric Ripper, who is now Opposition Leader.

Some senior Liberals are disgruntled with the bipartisanship Barnett is displaying in some of his hiring policies. One said to me: "Are they serious? It is going to be hard enough to hold the team together as a minority Government, let alone with leaks galore from former Labor hacks."

There are some notable former Howard staff members considering moving west to work for the Barnett Government.

Nick Minchin's long-time chief of staff, David Wawn, is running new WA Treasurer Troy Buswell's office. And while an advertisement in today's paper calls for applications for the head of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, unofficially the former secretary to the cabinet in the Howard government, Peter Conran, has been approached to apply.

But these are the exceptions that prove the rule. For the most part, Barnett has wanted to avoid the appearance of partisanship. This has been made easier by the difficulty of convincing eastern Liberals to move west for relatively modest pay.

The rule is the new WA Government has reduced the number of staff positions, taken to hiring failed Labor operatives and has shown a reluctance to employ experienced eastern states Liberals looking for work.

Peter van Onselen is an associate professor in politics and government at Edith Cowan University.