Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to speak for 20 minutes.

Leave granted.

One of the things I have followed over the life of the coalition government is the way that it staffs its ministerial offices. I well remember noting at the time of the election of the coalition government the fanfare around their announcement that they were taking less ministerial staff than the previous government. This immediately made me suspicious, and I have consistently checked the figures.

On 30 September 1996, government staff numbers, which were given as evidence at estimates committees, were 281 in all. They are now at a staggering 444.6, which is an increase of 163.6 staff. DLOs, or departmental liaison officers, have jumped to a record 71. That is 12 above standard allocation. The salaries and on-costs of DLOs alone go beyond $7 million. The salaries and on-costs of ministerial staffers are difficult to calculate. My best guesstimate is at least $45 million, making a $52 million payroll overall.

Apart from this massive and uncontrolled increase in staff, the second trend is that ministerial staffing has become very top heavy. People are being moved out of the more junior positions and into more senior positions, thus increasing the cost massively. What do we have now? We have five principal advisers, a staggering 79 senior advisers, 34 media advisers, 127 advisers, 92 assistant advisers, 58 office managers and 42 secretary-administrative assistants. I note those 42, as they come from the one area in the life of this government to decline—that is, the very bottom pay scale. In addition to this massive, top-heavy staff, we now have 36 staffers on the government side with personal classifications, 35 of whom are being paid above their normal classification into a new classification, and one poor soul—who I will never try to identify—is being paid below what they should be paid in a lower classification.

A unique category has also been created of special adviser, which is something that has never existed before. Again, it is paid at a much higher rate than a normal adviser would be paid at. As well as this, we now discover that there are 11 ministerial staffers being paid outside the salary band. We have always had salary bands. Mr President, you would know that your electoral staff always get paid within a salary band but, no, in 11 senior cases, people are paid above the salary band. This is a band that the Prime Minister approves every year and increases every year, but 11 have already galloped above that. We have a massive staff increase, which is top heavy. We have 36 people on personal classifications, 35 of whom are above what they would normally get, and another 11 being paid above the band that would normally constrain their salary.

Let us have a look at the disparity between government and opposition staffing. In 1996, there were 281 government staff and 56 opposition staff, so the gap between the government and the opposition was 225. In 2006, you have 444 government staff and 90 opposition staff. The gap between the government and the opposition is now 354. In other words, it has gone up by a further 129 in the gap between resources allocated to government and allocated to the opposition. What do we find at some of the more senior positions? The government has 79 senior advisers. Prior to the most recent formula, the opposition had five senior advisers. That is not a ratio of 21 per cent like staffing; that is a 15 to one government advantage. It is a staggering advantage. In other words, we get about six per cent of what the government gets.

There are 34 government media advisers. Remember, media advisers are a very well remunerated position. The opposition gets five. With regard to the government whips office, which basically has the same workload as the opposition whips office, the government have eight staff, the opposition have two staff, yet we are expected to contribute and help run this chamber on an equal basis. This is absolute nonsense. This can be rectified. I do believe that the staffing of the whips office should be excised out of the government and opposition numbers and funded and staffed separately. It would certainly make the government figures look better, but it would also bring a degree of equality into the chamber.

In addition to all this, we have the long notorious government members secretariat. We know all the equipment and services are provided by DOFA. But the staff now work for the chief whip of the House of Representatives, transferred out of ministerial control and away from scrutiny by the Senate estimates committee. This unit consists of 12 staff, mostly at a senior level. The reality is they are just an adjunct to the Liberal Party. They are just a secret campaign unit for the Liberal Party that are not responsible to this parliament, not scrutinized and never checked. They are hidden over in the House of Representatives.

In addition to that, some years ago we discovered the secret media monitoring. We wondered why an extra media adviser was sometimes allocated to junior ministers. Then we discovered in each state there was one extra media adviser and one extra staff assistant for those media advisers. When we asked Senator Hill and other ministers we got all the weasel words in the world. Then one sunny day Senator Parer breezed in as minister representing another minister. We asked him and he blurted out the whole truth. He told us that they were media monitors and was delighted to assist. He is president of the Queensland Liberal Party prior to the merger. He was delighted to tell us about it. It was most open and most gracious of him. He blew the whistle on all his colleagues that had obstructed the inquisitive process of the estimates committee. All this of course was done by stealth. There was no public announcement. This government had previously criticised the National Media Liaison Service. So rather than just replicate it in public they did it in private. They did it behind closed doors, all funded by the taxpayer.

Then of course we have the cabinet policy unit. This was initially listed under prime ministerial staff but it is now listed separately. You might ask why. It was because, if it was listed where it should be—the Prime Minister signs their contracts—the Prime Minister would have 47.3 staff. We could not have that appearing, because it is about 10 or 12 staffers beyond what Prime Minister Keating had. Therefore these six staffers are excised out, even though they are working directly for the Prime Minister, and put in a separate category.

As implied by its title, the cabinet policy unit should deal with cabinet issues. So I ask this question: why recently have two media advisers been appointed to the cabinet policy unit? This is not a group that seeks publicity. These are two very senior media advisers at cabinet media level appointment, so they are very expensive.