The recurring theme of branch stacking stories — apart from rampaging egos, sundered alliances and political self-obsession — is the misuse of taxpayer-funded staff for internal party politicking.
There’s a long list. The claims that electorate office and ministerial staff were involved in Adem Somyurek’s branch stacking within the Victorian ALP. Claims of branch stacking by an electorate officer for that most expired of political has-beens, Kevin Andrews, that led to a resignation. The employment of family members as electorate office staff. The involvement of electorate office staff in the misuse of taxpayer funding for political purposes.
Now, Kevin Andrews’ office is back in the news over sensational evidence reveaed by Nine television and newspapers that electorate office staff there were engaged in branch stacking and “facilitating factional operations”. The staff were said to be under the direction of the Victoria Liberal Christian right powerbroker Marcus Bastiaan.
Bastiaan, in a series of embarrassing recordings, also speaks of his ambition to secure a federal seat. “My preference much strongly [sic] is the Senate. I’d like to have a seat where I didn’t have to deal with constituent problems but I could continue to run the faction, so I could then fill parliament both state and federal with good people.”
It’s unlikely too many senators on any side of that chamber will be thanking Bastiaan for suggesting they have nothing to do all day but play political games, and certainly aren’t ever bothered by “constituent problems”.
Most senators are busy even when parliament isn’t sitting. They’re frontbenchers, or they’re chairs or deputy chairs of committees. If they’re on the crossbench, committee work is the only way they have of effecting change or raising their profile. But, as Bastiaan reminds everyone, they don’t have constituents like House of Reps MPs do, beyond the vague notion that the whole state or territory is their constituency.
But, inexplicably — save for reasons of rivalry between the two houses — senators are given four electorate office staff just like Reps MPs (some MPs are allowed five electorate office staff if they have to maintains two or even three offices to cover large electorates).
That means around 900 electorate office staff are funded by taxpayers, notionally for enabling MPs and senators to deal with the daily work of representing communities — acting as contact points, trying to solve problems constituents raise, organising events, handling correspondence.
Spend any time in an MP’s office and you’ll see that’s exactly what most of them do. But many MPs also use the positions for loyalists, relatives of other members, protegés and factional operatives. There is no requirement for MPs to advertise such positions for external applications. They skirt the rules around not employing relatives, and against electorate office staff engaging in partisan political work.
There are similar rules at state level; in Victoria, these rules were not so much skirted as blatantly violated by Victorian Labor in the “redshirts” scandal.
While there’s now a bespoke independent body for vetting the travel expenses of politicians and staff, oversight of electorate office staff is by the Department of Finance under the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act, rather than the Public Service Act. It’s a mechanism ripe for abuse — electorate office staff operate in the same twilight world of non-accountability of the MOPS Act that ministerial advisers operate in.
That also allows bullying and harassment to go on within electorate offices, usually in secret, given it is in the interests of political parties to keep such matters quiet even if it involves their opponents. All sides of politics have their bullies and sleazes who make the lives of their staff a misery; drawing attention to one is likely to end up backfiring for all parties.
The only way to bring to an end the practice of using electorate office staff for political activities is for significantly tougher financial penalties — say, MPs being required to pay back a multiple of the salary of staff found to have engaged in political work as part of their job — wielded by an independent body. The Australian National Audit Office could be given funding to conduct audits and spot checks of electorate office staff, using the phone records and documents produced within electorate offices.
Most MPs and their staff do the right thing. But their parties’ failure to rein in half-smart factional players who insist on rorting taxpayer funding undermines the whole system — and certainly undermines what’s left of public trust in parliament.
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Who would have thought this could happen in the Liberal Party too (at least they’re not Nationals “Nazi Youth” clones) – that they’re little different to Labor when it comes to coddled miscreants?
To adapt Scotty From Marketing a couple of weeks ago (when it was “Labor” caught in flagrante delicto) “The Liberal Party have a lot of explaining to do. I mean its; I’ve seen the reports. They’re very concerning and that’s something for Mr Morrison.”
…. Then “the party” re-endorses those known parasites?
Queensland politicians can be relied upon to consistently steal the show but Victoria is making a valiant effort to unseat the champions.
Although, am I right in saying Victoria is yet to have state government ministers do gaol time (as did several of Sir Joh’s cohorts)?
Two questions after watching the show?
i) When did Scotty From Marketing find out this was “coming down the pipe”?
ii) How long does it take to stitch up something, like, say, a “vaccination deal” photo-op?
Electorate officers are supposed to assist members with administration and management of their electorate business, right?
Doesn’t that mean doing things like providing advice and advocacy for constituents, listening to the opinions of constituents, and broadly, acting as a REPRESENTATIVE, right?
Why should MPs get any say in who does these jobs? Surely they could be carried out just as well by non-partisan public servants.
Partisan political activity should be carried out by party members, or by party employees. It should be resourced by the conviction and enthusiasm of the party membership and supporters.
Yeah, I know this is naively idealistic, but it strikes me idealism is sorely lacking in our various parliaments.
Agree. From memory, Ministers’ offices used to have a couple of political advisors, electorate staff and a couple of public servants to give portfolio advice. MPs just had electorate staff. This is how it should be.
Actually that should read staff to manage the Ministers office and portfolio business. Electorate staff are in the electorate office