Anthony Albanese has defended spending $159m to increase MPs’ electorate staff and related travel entitlements as necessary to help MPs of all political stripes serve growing electorates.
The measure, revealed in Tuesday night’s budget, helps the government deal with the fallout of Albanese’s controversial decision to slash independents’ staffing entitlement and complaints of unreasonable workload aired in the now-settled case between independent Monique Ryan and her former chief of staff Sally Rugg.
But the prime minister and treasurer, Jim Chalmers, were slightly at odds on the rationale for the new measure, with Chalmers citing “well-publicised court cases” as a motivation and Albanese downplaying the significance of the Rugg federal court case.
According to budget papers, the $159m over four years will “provide additional frontline electorate staff resources for each parliamentarian” and to “extend the nominated traveller expense entitlement to every parliamentarian” which allows electorate staff to travel to Canberra or elsewhere with MPs.
On Tuesday evening Chalmers told ABC this was done “in recognition of the really quite extraordinary workload that the offices are under”.
He said while the measure was “not entirely” a response to the Rugg case, it had “really shone a light” on the pressures on staff.
“It is about [MPs] serving their community better and taking pressure off the people who are working around the clock to help people.”
On Wednesday, Albanese said that Labor had done “the right thing” in contrast with the Morrison government’s changes which “unbeknown to anyone” saw backbench MPs in the major parties given four staff, and independents, even in a neighbouring seat, given eight.
“They’ve got the same number of constituents, the same number of pressures to deal with, which is what electorate staff are for,” he told Radio National.
“There used to be 80-odd-thousand people in an electorate when I was first elected. [Labor MP for Macarthur] Mike Freelander has almost 150,000.”
Albanese argued that “because there hasn’t been an increase in the number of electorates” the number of constituents per seat had “almost doubled”.
Albanese denied the measure was a response to Rugg’s case, which included a complaint that his staffing decision had contributed to her being required to work “unreasonable” additional hours.
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The case also argued the federal government was on notice that long hours contributed to an unsafe workplace, including through the findings of former sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins’ 2021 Set the Standard report.
But Albanese said the measure is “about the number of constituents, and secondly about the nature of the work”.
“Previously you would get letters in the mail,” he said. “Now you have email, social media, there is so much pressure on electorate staff, that is across the board.
“One of the things that court case was about was pressure on staff of members of parliament, that is why the treasurer made that comment.”
Albanese said that MPs felt that pressure “across the board – independents, Labor, Liberal, National”, arguing that the increased funding is “across the board not singling out anyone for any favours”.
In the wake of backlash to the staffing cut in July, influential crossbench senators including independent David Pocock and One Nation negotiated to secure an extra adviser.
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