Jessica Collins (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Members of Parliament (Staff) Amendment (Providing Certainty and Improving Integrity) Bill 2025. I do so to restore equity and fairness to the allocation of staffing resources for all senators and members regardless of political affiliation. This bill amends the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984 to place statutory minimum staffing guarantees for non-government parliamentarians and to remove the power of the executive to reduce these. This bill provides that opposition parties will be entitled to at least 110 personal, non-ministerial staff in recognition of their role in holding the government to account. With the Albanese government riding roughshod over parliamentary staff allocations, and so many other matters, this accountability is more vital than ever.

To help the opposition manage parliamentary business and perform its most primary function—holding the government to account—this bill provides that a non-government party with eight or more parliamentarians must be allocated at least 25 personal staff or five per cent of the government's total allocation, whichever is greater.

Holding governments and their ministers to account is intrinsic to our Westminster system of government. This bill will help the opposition and other parties in this house do just that. Accountability is essential to enhancing the quality of our governments and maximising transparency for the benefit of the Australian people. Whatever views we may have of the various minority parties in this parliament, this bill respects the place that they have at the table. Accordingly, it guarantees that independent parliamentarians and those of minor parties with fewer than eight sitting members must receive at least three personal staff, including one classified a senior adviser. With this Prime Minister behaving autocratically, with a tin ear to the interests of parties other than his own and the Australian Greens, this bill clarifies that the sitting Prime Minister cannot reduce these minimum entitlements through the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984 but may increase them.

The allocation of sufficient staffing resources is essential to the proper functioning of every senator's and member's office. Staff play an indispensable role for parliamentarians when it comes to research, policy analysis and advice, office management, media monitoring, stakeholder engagement, community liaison and a whole host of other functions. By guaranteeing minimum staffing resources for all members of parliament, this bill ensures that our elected representatives work at their optimal capacity, not so much for themselves but in the interests of the people they're elected to serve and represent.

This bill is sorely needed as the Prime Minister has used parliamentary staffing as a political weapon to weaken the standing of his opponents. The Prime Minister's actions to cut the legs from the staffing resources of his political opponents is partisan, petty and puffed up. It is unbecoming of a leader that aspires to be a statesman. One of the measures of true statesmanship is the ability to rise above partisan interests to serve the interests of all, whether they support you or not. The Prime Minister has clearly failed this test by his recent actions to cut the staffing resources of opposition and minor parties bar the Australian Greens. Most ominously, the Prime Minister's recent staffing cuts represent an unhealthy development for our democracy. Our parliament must be a domain for teams of all colours to compete on a level playing field, and yet the Prime Minister's actions are likewise breaching the rules of fairness, by reducing the staffing resources of opposing parties. Quite simply, this is putting the PM's Labor Party and Greens bedfellows at an unfair advantage. It's also setting a dangerous precedent for future governments. If a future government wishes to undercut its political opponents, it can go straight to the Albanese playbook and make staff cuts to the members and senators of parties they simply dislike. At some point those in government will be on the other side. Treat others as you would be treated. This is not how parliamentary democracy should function.

Australia is so much better than this. That is why we need this bill. It restores essential balance to our parliamentary democracy and guarantees fairness by ensuring that parliamentarians of all parties, or none, can have the resources they need to do their job. Importantly, this bill provides a check on the hubris of a Prime Minister by ensuring that neither Mr Albanese nor his successors can ever again escape scrutiny or evade accountability by reducing non-government staffing below a democratic floor. We've seen it so much in these past two sitting weeks: government hiding behind numbers. The aged-care numbers show 200,000 older Australians not being able to get the care that they need. The Albanese government promised to bring transparency to government. What else have we seen this week? New laws on freedom of information—the truth tax—that ask Australians, journalists, academics, members of parliament and senators to pay for the information that they are entitled to. It is an absolute disgrace. Rather than face scrutiny, Labor wants to bury it. We firmly believe that transparency is not a burden; it is a duty of this parliament and everyone who serves within it, and accountability is too. That is why this bill is so important, and I commend it to the Senate.