One Nation leader claims prime minister is driving staff to collapse by withholding resources
Pauline Hanson accused the prime minister of pushing his staff to the brink of collapse by refusing to allocate extra resources to One Nation as the tiny party gained electoral ground and outpaced the official opposition.
On Tuesday, Hanson said the prime minister was using his power to disadvantage his political opponents at the expense of the health of his staff, who were so stressed they were on the verge of physical collapse.
“Australians’ personal struggles are worse than ever; my staff have had to talk people back from the brink of taking their own lives,” he said in a post on social media.
Anthony Albanese has broken decades of parliamentary precedent on standardized resourcing by reducing the number of staff allocated to his opponents since taking office.
This led to a cross-party bid to strip the prime minister of discretion last year, but the Greens backed down from launching an investigation, saying they would await the outcome of an independent review by the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service.
This review found that security at election offices is a major concern as staff face increasing threats.
“Overall, staffing levels are not sufficient to meet the full working demands of parliament and voters
It was placed on staff in some offices,” the review published in August said.
“Workload in parliamentary offices remains consistently high throughout the year due to voter expectations and the demands of the 24-hour news cycle. Constituent engagement and advocacy are key workload drivers, with offices responding to high volumes of complex inquiries about government services.”
Hanson said he made his objection public because behind-the-scenes negotiations failed. He said he had a “very good” meeting with the prime minister in February after One Nation hired Barnaby Joyce and gained minor party status with five MPs.
The party grew again this month and added David Farley, who captured Farrer’s seat from the Coalition in a historic by-election.
“I am the leader of a political party that votes more than the major political parties. The government has failed to appoint staff to One Nation close to a functional level. This is pure, bloody-minded policy from the Labor Party,” Hanson said.
“Since the staff cuts I have been going to both the prime minister and special secretary of state Don Farrell. I have been begging and begging them to give us more staff so we can cope with the heavy workload.”
Hanson said a staff member under “extreme stress” wrote directly to the prime minister but was ignored.
“The Labor Party hasn’t even responded and doesn’t even care,” he said.
The One Nation leader said he had five constituency officers; these officers are the standard number of staff assigned to each MP, and they generally deal with constituency matters, the media and stakeholders rather than legislation.
More senior, higher-paid staff are allocated at the discretion of the prime minister.
Hanson said he had two advisers in parliament, compared to Greens leader Larissa Waters’ 15 and the prime minister’s 59.
The Coalition joined protests over staff allocations last year, with protests already aired by crossbenchers Lidia Thorpe, David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie.
Independent senator Fatima Payman accused the prime minister of retaining staff to punish her for leaving Labor. The Western Australian representative is the only senator without a personal staff, despite lobbying for more resources.
Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg claims Albanese tried to use staff allocations for political gain by offering former opposition leader Sussan Ley extra resources in return for her support for Freedom of Information restrictions which have since been abandoned.
The Prime Ministry was contacted to get an opinion on the issue. A government spokesman had previously said Labor would also reduce its staff during this period, but did not say how many.
Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up for our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.
Brittany Busch is the federal politics correspondent for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.
