Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended his choice to chop the variety of parliamentary advisers for these on the crossbench.
He knowledgeable the crossbench on Friday he had minimize their staffing allocation to 1 / 4 of what it was within the earlier parliament, leaving them with just one adviser every to work by way of reams of laws.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media on Sunday evening.Credit score:Alex Ellinghausen
Albanese instructed ABC Radio Nationwide on Monday the earlier allocation for these on the crossbench was unfair as “some crossbenchers had double the employees that different backbenchers had”.
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“They’re not completely on their very own. The very fact is that they’ve entry to the parliamentary library which we might be growing assist for,” he instructed Sabra Lane.
He mentioned the federal government had additionally minimize $1.5 million from its personal staffing price range, however didn’t specify whether or not this could end in fewer advisers.
Underneath Albanese’s new staffing proposal, the crossbench members will all retain 4 lower-paid and fewer specialised citizens advisers, who take care of constituency issues, moderately than laws, media and stakeholders, that means they’ll nonetheless have another employees member than a authorities backbencher.
Albanese mentioned whereas crossbenchers had reported to him that they didn’t need their citizens officers to do parliamentary work, “the very fact is that individuals who work as elected officers usually do parliamentary work”.
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“That’s how each single backbencher operates and certainly frontbenchers as nicely,” he mentioned.
“It is a very latest phenomenon of an upping of parliamentary employees.
“What issues me is that [under] the Morison authorities – similtaneously our slicing Centrelink employees, when individuals can’t get passports and visas can’t get processed – the one space of public service that noticed a rise in staffing ranges seems to have been parliamentary employees.”
