Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

The Attorney-General has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

In October 2011, the paid FTE for the Communication and Media unit was 22.0.

The breakdown of those staff by classification is as follows:

The communication and media function within Customs and Border Protection includes two separate sections – the Communication Section and the Media Section is currently headed by a CL5 officer. Both sections are part of the Corporate Governance and International Strategy Branch which is headed by a SES Band 1.

The Communication Section consists of four small teams. Each team consists of 2-3 staff dedicated to each Program within the Agency, that is Border Enforcement, Passenger and Trade Facilitation and Corporate Operations as well as Digital and Online Communication. The Digital and Online Communication team also provides an in-house graphic design function.

The Communication Section is responsible for providing strategic (internal and external) communication advice to the organisation including:

The Media Section consists of six staff and is responsible for:

The media team is staffed from Monday to Friday from 7.00am until 6.30pm. On-call arrangements are in place from 6.30pm until 7.00am, Monday to Friday and from 6.30pm Friday until 7.00am Monday. There is only one officer on-call at any time and the officer is generally at the CL3 or CL2 level. However, they are provided support by a CL4 or the CL5 officer during on-call hours.

The on-call officer is paid a restriction allowance for the on-call hours, is able to access either time-in-lieu or overtime for hours worked outside of regular hours.

The restriction allowance approximately $300 per week for a CL2 and $340 for a CL3. Staff from both the Media and Communication section are available for on-call duty.