Australian politics needs a competition regulator – and the PM’s control over MPs’ staffing levels must be abolished

Politics isn’t that different from supermarkets. You’ve got Coles and Woolies, they’re your big two parties. You’ve got the smaller rivals, which are your Greens. The independents are the local grocery shops that have one site and aren’t franchised. And you’ve got regional players, like FoodWorks or Harris Farm, which are big in one or two states. That’s One Nation and the Jacqui Lambie Network.

The small players value your support more, but the big ones control the market. The competition regulator keeps an eye on what Coles and Woolworths are up to and keeps them honest. Without it, the big guys work against letting anyone else compete with them.

We don’t have a competition regulator in politics. Not when it comes to how staffing allocations are decided.

The prime minister of the day has sole discretion to determine how many personal staff members everyone gets. They decide how many staff they have, along with how many staff the opposition gets, and any crossbencher.

The PM – and I’m not saying our current one would do this – could potentially decide to reward his favourite MPs with extra staff, and punish the ones who don’t support him by taking away staff.

And there aren’t any steps the opposition or crossbenchers can take to appeal this discretionary power.

This power poses a potential corruption risk. If we weren’t talking staff but we were instead talking office budget, would we think that was appropriate? Would you really think it’s fine for a PM to shower an extra $200,000 a year on the office budget of their favourite crossbencher? Would it be acceptable for a PM to be able to cut an MP’s budget by $400,000 a year for not voting with the government?

The system says voters decide who represents them and yet a single person could potentially impact how effective you are as a representative. The easiest way to stop your opponents from succeeding is to take away the resources they have to do the job.

Staff are the heart of every politician’s office. No politician can do everything on their own. You can’t be answering the phone every time a constituent calls if you’re also meeting constituents in the other room.

Take away those resources and that means not having someone to pick up the phone for the constituent with a Centrelink issue. Or it could mean having no one available to scrutinise the 10 amendments that hit your inbox five minutes before you have to vote on them on the floor.

It’s not just me saying it either. Clearly, the PM doesn’t need convincing of the value of staff. After all, he’s increased his own side’s staffing allocation by an extra 50 positions since he was elected.

The current Labor government says the PM having sole discretion over staffing allocations is fine because it’s the way it’s always been.

I don’t get the logic. What’s the point of being in government if you’re there to keep things the way they were before you were elected?

It’s clear there’s a role for an independent body to determine what's reasonable, to make sure it’s done at arm’s length, transparently and without prejudice.

The remuneration tribunal is an independent body already responsible for the pay and conditions of members and senators. We have one because we don’t trust politicians to set their own pay, or for the PM to decide it for everyone. But for some reason, we still trust our PMs to set office resources for everyone.

Why can’t the allocation of personal staffing sit with the remuneration tribunal?

Maybe your inner sceptic is arcing up. You think I’m only calling for this because I might end up with more resources. Trust me, I’m not. If an independent umpire says I should lose staff, I’ll cop it. I’d rather lose in a fair game than win a rigged one.

To be clear, I’m not accusing the PM of doing anything corrupt. I’m saying the way the rules are written around staffing allocations allows for the possibility of corruption by a PM. If Labor fails to do anything about it, that is something the government will have to answer for.