EXPLAINER: What are personal staff, and why do they have Clive Palmer contemplating another political campaign?

by Bill Browne

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Clive Palmer, the billionaire coal miner who funded the Palmer United Party, United Australia Party and Trumpet of Patriots, is considering another political run.

According to 6 News, his motivation is outrage over Prime Minister Anthony Albanese cutting personal staff for crossbenchers.

But what are personal staff, and why does the Prime Minister decide who gets them?

Personal staff help politicians do their jobs

Parliamentarians receive a combination of electoral staff and personal staff.

Electoral staff are (at least in theory) focused on helping constituents, the people who live in the politician’s electorate.

Personal staff can specialise in policy, scrutinising new laws and media/communications.

In a 2022 op-ed, Senator Jacqui Lambie described the contribution made by her staff:

When I’ve got to decide whether a bill should pass, it’s my staff who take the daily calls from industry groups and community organisations and who work directly with the people who’re going to be affected by a change.

They weigh up the arguments for and against what the government wants to do, and help me figure out who to believe.

Personal staff are a gift of the Prime Minister

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese decides how many personal staff his colleagues in the Labor Party get, how many his opponents in the Liberal–National Opposition get, and how many crossbenchers in the middle get.

It gives the Prime Minister of the day the power to punish and reward politicians.

For example, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese refused to give Senator Fatima Payman the normal crossbench allocation of personal staff after she quit the Labor Party.

The allocation is arbitrary. For example, when the Greens won more seats, Albanese did not give them more personal staff. But when the Liberal–National Coalition lost seats, Albanese cut their personal staff.

As senior journalist Michelle Grattan argues:

Staff allocation is up to the prime minister, who has once again been arbitrary about how many staff individual Senate crossbenchers receive.

This is an unfair and indefensible system — there should be independent, consistent rules.

What can be done?

Politicians’ salaries are set by an independent Remuneration Tribunal, because letting politicians decide how much they pay themselves would be a conflict of interest.

By analogy, independent Senator David Pocock has suggested that staffing allocations be decided by the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission.

The Australia Institute included independent staffing allocations in our Democracy Agenda for the 48th Parliament, arguing:

Transparent guidelines that are easily understood and explained would allow for staffing allocations to be set in a fair way. Such guidelines could account for the number of parliamentarians a party has, whether a given parliamentarian sits in a chamber where the government does not have a majority, whether the party is the formal opposition, regional challenges, and so on.

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