Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When this government was elected it said that parliament would be different, that parliament would be more respectful and more family friendly. Apparently, and I am quoting from the minister's press release:

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the team are determined not to waste this opportunity for our nation.

I don't think the team and the PM are that determined to make this place family friendly. There are opportunities being wasted all over the shop—for example, in the 2024 parliamentary calendar, all of the school holidays for every other state are listed on in the margins except for Tasmania. Tassie apparently has holidays only in January and December! Were mid-year Tasmanian school holidays not even considered? We are used to being left off the map, but we do expect better from our government. How family friendly is it to be making staff fly home on Good Friday? Yeah, that's right: according to the sitting calendar, we are sitting on Easter Thursday, which means that everyone in this place who doesn't live in Sydney, Melbourne or a nearby capital city will have to fly home on Good Friday. How's that for family friendly?

While we're on travel, the allowance for parliamentary travel has not kept up with the cost of living. This means that a lot of our staffers in here who keep all of us going are out of pocket after they travel. Not only are they expected to work these punishing hours—and that's exactly what they are expected to do—and often on weekends, but they are also expected to pay their own out-of-pocket expenses on the shortfall for travel. This is how bad it is getting up here. This is from a government who says it cancelled a week of sittings this year because it was worried about the impact on staff. What a load of rubbish! Whose staff were you talking about? You sure as hell were not speaking about crossbench staff—I can tell you that much right now. You took staff off us, you bloody lifted some of your own over there, and you put an even harder impact on them. I'm telling you, this needs to be reviewed. I'm sick of my staff being done over. It is so unfair.