Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Farrell for that question. As I indicated to the Senate yesterday, both the office of the Prime Minister and, for that matter, the Department of Finance have an administrative role in relation to these appointments. In relation to the finance department, incidentally, that is an administrative role that they have in relation to all staff employed by members and senators, whether in government or in opposition. As far as the appointments of staff in Nationals ministers' offices and other Nationals members' offices are concerned, as I indicated yesterday, my advice is there is an overall allocation of staff—there's a staffing pool—that is allocated to Nationals ministers. These are decisions that are made by the National Party. As the Deputy Prime Minister advised in a statement again today, he did not discuss these matters with the Prime Minister or his office as Vikki was not his partner, so they were dealt with in the usual course of staff deployments and appointments within the National Party.