Comments on: Wrecked lives and compensation: the MP staffer scandal

By: Dave Liberts

Dave Liberts — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

I spent a total of nearly 8 years as an electorate staffer, primarily working for two South Australian state MPs. The two I worked for were both very hard-working and very intelligent marginal-seaters. They were capable of excellent staff management on their good days, and were both pretty disastrous on their bad days. My electorate office work was at the start of my career, and now a couple of years into work outside such offices, I realise how unhealthy the environment could be at times. I believe the biggest problem is that MPs are given zero management training when they are elected, despite election automatically meaning that you have to manage staff. MPs are, by the nature of the political system, often people with healthy egos, prone to arguements, prone to ‘you’re either with me or against me’ thinking, swear like troopers and can be unwilling to accept personal blame. They can also be charming, interesting, passionate and community-minded. As a staffer, you have to be ready to cop all of this. On balance, I learnt a massive amount in my electorate career and am thankful for it, but there were certainly days which were absolute nightmares.

By: Helen Evans

Helen Evans — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

As a taxpayer I really resent my taxes being spent to save the careers of badly-behaved immoral MPs with silence agreements and payouts. The Queensland Parliament’s administration needs to fully explain why its not reporting workplace breaches and why its using my money and its powers to step outside the industrial relations agendas of this country. If our parliaments are riddled with questionable characters and practices what hope has Neville Nobody got out there on the factory floor?

By: Peta Cox

Peta Cox — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

If the MPs know their jobs are safe with the parliament handing out compensation packages like Christmas presents where’s the big deterrent. Why can’t the guilty MPs be sacked and a bi-election called or these cases put before an Industrial Relations Commission. Bra-snapping, chair-sniffing, bullying and pedophilic practitioners all welcome in our parliaments but not in mainstream society. PS..and it sounds as though that MP down in Victoria who is reported to have mouthed off at the local hairdresser came from the same institution as this mob up in Queensland - the juvenile detention centre.

By: Chris J

Chris J — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

The silence from Anna Bligh over her Party’s abuse of staff with the help of the Queensland Parliament is deafening. This human resource nightmare at the heart of government has failed to excite even Rudd and Gillard. The national disgrace of such harsh and unsafe work conditions in too many MP electorate offices is demanding of parties and parliaments to resolve pronto. When the Queensland Parliament’s duty of care to its workers is much like that of a Beijing bordello it’s time to call an inquiry. Obscenely degrading payouts like CEO terminations sewn up with silence agreements to oppress systemic employee abuse surely is criminal. If not we need to know why not. In NSW that state’s parliament is singing from the same hymn sheet as Gillian Sneddon puts her house on the market to fund her claim for compensation for going to work for pedophile MP Milton Orkopoulos. She’s being assassinated for assisting police. Here again a parliament is supporting a party over a miscreant MP who landed in jail. Surely the millions outlaid on compensation could be better spent on fixing the problem via training and accountability measures and a bit more. With the Queensland and NSW parliaments propping up Rose, Lee and Orkopoulos like star league players we need to hear from Bligh, Gillard, Rudd and Turnbull as to why political parties value these misfits more highly than other Australians.