Albanese’s right to set crossbenchers’ personal staffing numbers faces scrutiny

Independent Senator David Pocock is seeking to remove the discretion of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to decide the number of extra staff crossbenchers receive.

His case is being reinforced by the delay in the government informing Senator Fatima Payman – who defected from the Labor party in July – of her personal staff allocation.

Each parliamentarian receives five electorate staff (increased from four in 2023). But it is up to the PM how many personal staff they get above that. This has led at times to arguments, long delays and haggling between crossbenchers and the prime minister.

Pocock has two personal staff, the standard number for crossbench senators. (Senator Jacqui Lambie has an extra staffer for her work in relation to the veterans royal commission.)

Payman has written twice to Albanese and Special Minister of State Don Farrell, and on Monday was still waiting for a reply.

Payman says without extra staff she can’t get across the flow of business and legislation in the Senate.

She has appointed the well-known “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery as her chief of staff, but at the moment he is occupying one of her electorate staff spots.

After the election, Albanese clashed with crossbenchers when he cut their staff allocations from the very generous deal they had received under former Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Albanese said the Morrison largesse to crossbenchers was unfair to government and opposition MPs.

Some of the teals were particularly upset. The independent member for Warringah, Zali Steggall, said at the time the prime minister should be stripped of the power to decide MPs’ staffing allocations. “I’m really angry and disappointed with [Albanese],” she said then. The prime minister in turn was said to have been angry at her attack.

Pocock said on Monday the decision on personal staff should be made “independently for all parliamentarians based on a fair assessment of workloads and resourcing needs”.

He said this could be undertaken by the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission.

The government will introduce legislation this week to set up commission. It was recommended by Kate Jenkins’ inquiry into Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces. It will be charged with enforcing behaviour codes for parliamentarians, staff and other people in these workplaces. The legislation has been developed in consultation with the cross-party parliamentary leadership taskforce.

Pocock plans to try to amend the legislation on the staffing issue. “Having personal staff be a gift that the prime minister can give or withhold raises issues of integrity, probity and fairness, We have seen this play out over the course of the past few parliaments and on both sides of politics where staffing allocations have been used to both praise and punish,” Pocock said.

In a Monday night ABC Australian Story about her, Payman says of her defection, “I’m definitely at peace with the decision I’ve made”.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.