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Former MP fights back: electorate staff behave badly too!
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Hi Crikey, I was just reading your stuff on MPs behaving badly and don’t doubt its truth but as a former MP (this e-mail does not reflect my real name) I can tell you it’s no picnic “managing” your electorate staff either and they often behave very badly. Some examples in my own experience include a staffer running their own business from her desk in my office and going home “sick” when I wasn’t there and diverting the phone to her house so callers (including me) got her personal answering machine message. Her partner came in whenever I wasn’t there and used my desk (with feet up on it) and made heaps of international and STD calls. One staffer lived in the office without my knowledge for some weeks — had a sleeping bag which they rolled out at night and showered in the nearby facilities. Saves rent! Another fell madly in love with a much younger person and made her life a misery by s-xually harassing her. I am still the worst person in the world for sorting that out. One used to go out every day to collect her children from school in work time but absolutely refused to do 1min extra work after 5pm or any other time to compensate. The same one used to come in then order a huge cooked breakfast from the shop next door, sit down and eat it and still have all the usual meal breaks. Then she’d shop in her lunch hour and come back and eat her lunch in work time — but out the back, not at her desk — and not making any pretence of doing any work in that time either. Same one had always, “just stepped out” whenever I called from away to ask for anything. I later found out it was long lunches with the girls, shopping for children’s uniforms etc or putting her gold lotto on. I used to give them a half day rostered time off on Fridays but after abuse after abuse of the system cancelled it — so they took it in turns to be “sick” every Friday. If you pull them up you are “bullying” them and they threaten “union” and if it were to go public the MP would cop it from the media and suffer in the big poll on election day so it’s hard to know what to do. I know of a minister in the current government who is having almost the same problems right now. It’s not uncommon. You just wish they would come to work, do their work and go home and cut all the drama. MPs may behave badly but by golly they are not unprovoked sometimes either! Regards, Harry Meanwhile, in the interest of balance, Crikey received the following anonymous tips regarding misbehaving MPs: The great irony about the dismissal of Tony Stewart is that it was done by a Premier who has a reputation for being pretty hard on staff himself. It’s common knowledge within the ALP, and probably the reason that Stewart’s dismissal has antagonised so many MPs. I worked closely with a Federal MP based in Sydney who was an absolute disgrace in the methods he used to “manage” staff. Not only did he set an obscene example by abusing taxpayer funds (ie. using staff to drop his children to school every morning then collect them and claim as a “travel expense”) but he also used Comcars to travel to and from events that weren’t related to his portfolio of the time. Why don’t you have a look at Wayne Swan’s track record. He built an appalling reputation while working for Mick Young and later as Qld ALP Secretary. He was known to have reduced a number of female staff to tears because of his behaviour. You might also look at the trashing of his electorate office when he lost his seat. At a party in Adelaide last week I met a woman who had been an electorate officer for a SA State Minister. As I am myself a former electorate officer we struck up a conversation and compared notes. Now while my years in this role were enjoyable, her story was quite different. She says she was employed on merit, and that she was not and has never been a member of the ALP. Initially she said the job was good, and relations with the Minister were cordial. However, she says that after about two years, the Minister’s attitude changed completely, and for the next two years she was subjected to verbal abuse of quite a vicious and personal nature. She said that the continual victimisation caused her such personal distress that she resigned from the position. |
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7 Comments
“However, she says that after about two years, the Minister’s attitude changed completely.” -When the attitude of one person to another changes, there is generally a reason for it. Maybe the person concerned should have a close look at herself.
I know that people can behave irrationally, but even then it is not without a reason. My point I suppose that a casual discussion at a party is not worth much in this discussion.
I think I may be familiar with the case of the former Adelaide electorate staffer referred to above. If it’s the case I’m thinking of, it’s a classic example of how working in an electorate office is different to most similar employment in an admin/community service field. The worker was competent at admin and customer service functions and put in good hours in the office, but her lack of ALP experience meant she had no idea about political campaigning. In SA, electorate offices are administered via the Department of Treasury & Finance (not the office of the Speaker in Parliament, as in some other states). The Department’s official position was that electorate offices are not meant to be used for campaigning, but this policy is routinely ignored by both sides of politics, and one of the jobs of an SA electorate officer wears is invariably to hide campaign activities from the Department. The worker in question (correctly in the eyes of the department, but incorrectly in the eyes of her colleagues) believed that campaigning on behalf of the MP was “the ALP’s job”, not hers. The MP did not do a great job of managing the situation, from what I heard, so I can understand that the staffer in question feels aggrieved, but I also have enough ALP campaign experience to know that staffers have to campaign - to protect their own jobs, but also to not overburden campaign volunteers (who are worth their weight in gold in many cases).
Nice to hear from an MP, thanks Harry. You certainly had an awful time of it along with your staff and constituents. No doubt you too agree electorate offices need a major overhaul. Your staff recruiting and management skills were in no way efficiently productive as they screamed for professional human resource intervention. Someone attuned to modern workplace practices. Had your staff not been a ‘splinter-group’ of public and parliamentary service but public servants with skills transfer options for employment in the APS or with other MPs then everyone would have benefited from that flexibility. Perhaps your staff felt undervalued because their Award and conditions of employment were open to you and your Party’s interpretation. Without an employment framework and as little more than grace and favour parliamentary recruits they were serving you, the parliament, the party and constituents. Highly confusing, ambiguous and tenuous stuff trying to serve many masters. And if the Parliament, the MP and the party don’t take your role seriously its highly unrealistic to expect your staff to. Yes Harry, when not even the Workplace Ombudsman can over ride an MPs staffing decisions, the electorate office is an archaic IR model with no place in Gillard and Rudd’s workplace relations agenda. I’m confident removal of the party factor and turning these information and advice offices into bone fide government offices would resolve the whole problem. But MPs and their parties would have to fund their own PR outfits instead of using the public purse. Tough call Harry.
While I sympathise with ‘Harry Wilde’ his comment just confirms the general point that Crikey has been making: any competent public service manager would have used the standard performance management processes to improve, correct, discipline or dismiss the errant staff as appropriate. It takes up to 6 months of unpleasantness but fixes the problem thereafter. The fact that Harry apparently wasn’t able to do so suggests that he would have benefited from a bit of professional development and support himself, just as Crikey proposes. If not that, return to having public servants engaged by the public service board.
Harry Wilde seems to think there is something unique about the poor attitude of some of his former electorate staff. Welcome to the real world Harry. All employers face the risk of employing some people who display less than helpful attitudes to their work and employers. (Mind you it is my experience office attitudes start at the top. Harry may have to recognise he is the common feature of all the disasters.)
In any case; we real world employers all have to deal with unfair dismissal laws and the like. Harry has not added anything which justifies MP’s being treated differently.
Even Harry Wilde ex-MP seems p**sed off with his electorate office arrangement. Snark aside - how do you flog a job that’s pure servitude with WHS, OHS and EEO used as treats and sweeties if your MP feels generous?. Parliaments keep window-dressing these dogs-body career stiflers under various coats-of-arms to call for highly skilled admin/journo/governance experts (one MP wanted legal or para-legal qualifications!). Yet they fail to disclose the over-riding influence of MP management that in laymans terms is Workchoices – the death knell of IR policy. Worse still is the inability of these professionals to transfer to another MP or move into the public service despite the relevance of skills and experience. London to a brick the MP with resolute management powers will call on the journo or legal eagle to take up the office domestics, letter-box, manage petty cash or drive a family member to school, the P&C or in some way get involved in abuse of tax-resourced services. All stuff that suppresses good workplace practices and repels superior staff. That practice of parliaments and parties to conspire on attracting a-political merit appointees under false pretences should be the subject of an inquiry. There’s an onus to fully apprise applicants of the intense party influence over these jobs and the huge ramifications of that on the futures of would be legal, journo or other professionals. Trying to staff party bunkers with experts under inexpert management is a recipe for disaster. As Harry just told you.
Strewth Harry - no wonder economies are in dire straits with MPs such as yourself. ” A staffer running their own business from her desk in my office and going home “sick” when I wasn’t there and diverting the phone to her house so callers (including me) got her personal answering machine message. Her partner came in whenever I wasn’t there and used my desk (with feet up on it) and made heaps of international and STD calls”. Did you report and follow through on this abuse of taxpayer funds, did you raise this with the parliament and sack her?. Did you change the locks on your electorate office doors? And hopefully the ‘staffer who lived in the office without my knowledge for some weeks — had a sleeping bag which they rolled out at night and showered in the nearby facilities. Saves rent!” got the boot as well. Says a lot about your staff selection skills and inexcusable tolerance of bad behaviour. You did realise Harry the electorate office role is to serve you and constituents? What sort of competent manager tolerates “long lunches with the girls, shopping for children’s uniforms etc or putting her gold lotto on or doesn’t counsel (with union or parliamentary representation in attendance) sick leave abuse. Reasonable management action was clearly lacking in your case - you took none. And atleast you had four guaranteed years in office as your staff live on the instant dismissal proviso as MP staff. Up in Queensland MP staff are on 12-months probation!! Harry we voted against the Workchoices template because it was unfair, unsafe and uncertain. But you and your colleagues including the one in the “current government who is having almost the same problems right now” don’t want to relinquish the all-rights to MP and none to staff practice. We wish MPs would also just “come to work, do their work and go home and cut all the drama” by leaving it up to an impartial parliament to run our workplaces and not silly as a wheel MPs such as yourself.