Staffing for parliamentarians - who should control their numbers and classification?

Reducing the number of opposition staffers from a 100 or so to the reported 87 is minuscule compared to the more than 430 in ministerial offices, which are supplemented by the support and expertise of each minister's public service department.

Indeed, Albanese's prime ministerial office alone has about 60 staff, while comparable with recent coalition prime ministers, it is far more than previous Labor leaders like Whitlam, who had just 21.

The 1989 Queensland Fitzgerald Report highlighted the lack of adequate staffing for oppositions to scrutinise the National Party-led governments, and so undermined responsible and accountable government and possibly allowed corruption to flourish.

By the current government reducing its own ministerial numbers, cuts to opposition staff numbers can be justified. Pictures by Elesa Kurtz, Shutterstock

Another concern is that the government is reported to be giving greater emphasis to employing more political rather than policy or expert personnel in ministerial offices.

This presumably means having fewer experienced public servant secondments from departments who presently constitute surprisingly large proportion of ministerial staff, including chiefs of staff, under both Labor and Coalition administrations.

The problem with current arrangements is that too much is left to convention and non-legislated formulas.

For instance, since 1995, opposition staff numbers were based on a formula that their staffing allocation be 21 per cent of the government's staff.

So, by the current government reducing its own ministerial numbers, cuts to opposition staff numbers can be justified.

While the MoPS Act required the prime minister to have regard to the "parliamentary duties" of a member or senator when concerning personal staff, that term is not defined nor clarified by other material.

Although there has been the Sex Commissioner's investigation of parliamentary working conditions and the subsequent review of the MoPs Act, personal staff numbers and their allocations have not been similarly reviewed.

They are thus open to far too much discretionary decision-making driven by partisan, rather than public interest, considerations.

Consequently, there is a need for a follow-up to the 2009 Henderson Review of Government Staffing, preferably one that is independent and transparent, to consider who and on what basis staffing numbers and allocations are made.

It might explore new issues like whether the Greens with 12 per cent of the vote deserve a better allocation than is presently envisaged.