Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

This motion is about calling out the hard work the Clerk Assistant (Procedure) office does. This office supports all non-government senators in drafting private senators' bills, drafting bill amendments to government bills and providing us with procedural advice. This is a small team with immense time pressures, often needing to turn over work with very short notice to enable us to circulate it in the Senate. They need to ensure drafting is legally sound and accurate. I honestly don't know how they do it. They must be some of the smartest people I have ever encountered. They are always up against the wind, there is never enough time to do the work yet these dedicated people respond to us with kindness and do all they can to assist.

There are seven people in that office and they work very long hours to try and get us the drafting we need. No matter how hard they work, it is almost impossible to fulfil the demand, and over the last months we have noticed that increasingly we cannot get amendment drafting in time to meaningfully engage with other officers and the government on it, or even at all before a bill comes to a vote. We have seen a very demanding parliamentary schedule and a significant volume of legislation, which are hard enough to deal with in the limitations of an Independent's office that does not have the staffing and resources that political parties have. The under resourcing and understaffing of the drafters office compounds these challenges. The consequence is that we cannot always do our job to the extent we need to represent the interests of our constituents. We cannot always negotiate the changes to legislation that need to happen to improve outcomes for the community. There are clear consequences of this to our democracy. This seemingly small thing perpetrates structural inequalities, inequities, within the parliamentary system and inevitably undermines the quality of outcomes. Therefore, I strongly call on the government to immediately review the resourcing and staffing levels allocated to the office of the Clerk Assistant (Procedure) in light of the current parliamentary workload and provide additional funding and staffing to the officers to alleviate pressures. I call on the government to ensure that sufficient time is allocated for senators, including those on the crossbench, to scrutinise and propose amendments to legislation supporting meaningful engagement and informed decision-making.