The NSW Premier claims to support workers' rights, unless those workers happen to work for MPs. Today in Parliament, Abigail gave a scathing rebuke calling out Labor's decision to override an independent tribunal determination that would have required MPs to spend their Electoral Allowance on their actual duties rather than pocket it as salary, while also blocking a modest staffing increase that three independent reviews, including the Broderick report, identified as urgently needed to protect parliamentary staff from unsafe workloads, power imbalances and the risk of exploitation and harassment.

Abigail said:

On behalf of The Greens I contribute to debate on the Parliamentary Remuneration Amendment (Basic Salary and Additional Entitlements) Bill 2026. I do wish to not labour over the details that have already been so adequately set out by the Government and the Opposition in both this and the other place, but I make a few remarks. We will come to the staffing issue when we talk about the amendments, but I indicate that The Greens support those amendments, and I will come to the reasons why. But I first take a step back to what the Parliamentary Remuneration Tribunal is and why we have it.

As members will know full well, it is considered—and would certainly be considered by the public—to be on the nose or a little stinky if members decided their own pay. That is why we have an independent remuneration tribunal. Otherwise, what would stop members from saying, "We all need to have half a million dollars for our salary, thank you" and just passing it by legislation? That would be a massive conflict of interest. Even the fact that we have to talk about and vote on our own salary, which is what the Government has forced us to do today, is a huge conflict of interest. Each and every member should probably excuse themselves from this debate, but cannot because there would otherwise be no Parliament. That is why we have that annual determination.

The process by which that determination is made every year is very familiar to members of this House. Members all get the opportunity to put their thoughts on what they think the situation should be. If members read the remuneration determination carefully, they will see that parties put in their submissions stating what they think should happen regarding various entitlements, staffing and, for some, their own wages. It should be noted that every party said that it needed more staff, despite the Labor Government now resisting that very sensible determination in this year's annual determination. In this particular case, there were a couple of different opportunities for us, as various parties and as Independents, to come together to work out what we wanted in this year's determination. We put in a couple of submissions. It was the standard submission we were allowed to make.

I understand the Presiding Officers also made a submission at the time, notably asking for more staff. Two particular issues were of interest to the commissioner: She asked all of us for additional information about our staffing entitlements and our use of the electoral allowance. That is where things get really interesting. Although the Labor Party and the Premier in particular have claimed that there has been a massive pay rise in this determination, if members actually look at it, there is a pay cut. If members allow the annual determination to stand by not passing this bill today, a number of members would actually find themselves with a pay cut from 2027, including a lot of Labor backbenchers. That is interesting. Members actually have to look at the determination. But given how quickly the Minns captain's call was made and the media spin unit churned it out, I am sure that most Labor members have not had a chance to read it. The determination focuses on the use of the electoral allowance.

For the punters playing at home, MPs have a base salary of around $180,000 and a bunch of entitlements on top of that. Those entitlements are set in buckets. All of them, except for the electoral allowance, require MPs to substantiate the expense. There is a communications allowance, which used to be used a lot for mail-outs but is these days used for electronic communications. There is a skills and training allowance and a general travel allowance. There is also a Sydney allowance, which allows members who live outside of Sydney, as I do, to claim a certain allowance for the nights that we substantiate that we have stayed in Sydney, as well as the travel costs of going backwards and forwards. They are limited but, in each of those cases, MPs have to substantiate what they have spent the allowance on to get that money.

But when it comes to the electoral allowance, which is a large bucket of money—the largest amount of the entitlements that MPs have—there is no requirement to substantiate an expense before getting it. Instead, it is a bucket of money that MPs are supposed to use to run their office and do everything they need to in their parliamentary duties. The Greens party puts a disclosure obligation on Greens MPs to say exactly what they have spent their electoral allowance on. Every few months, Greens MPs provide party members with a statement of what they spent their electoral allowance on. It will include things like the expense of audiovisual equipment for social media reasons, the pens that office staff use to write, printing stickers, or work-from-home internet costs for staff. It is for any expense that would otherwise fall into other buckets of allowances that have already been maxed out.

Greens MPs are obliged to spend every cent of the electoral allowance on their parliamentary duties, and may not take any of it as salary. However, the other major parties do not have that obligation. Any backbenchers or members of their parties have the ability to instead take that electoral allowance as salary without having to tell people what they have done with it. They are accountable only to the tax office as to whether or not they take it as salary. Disturbingly, the determination makes clear that a lot of MPs are just taking that electoral allowance as salary. It points out that the amount of that electoral allowance can vary between $77,965 and $203,140. That is an almost $130,000 difference in how much electoral allowance members of this place are paid.

That means that, when added to the base salary, someone like me could be on $180,000—I am not complaining, as that is a very good wage for a person in this State to have—but somebody in this or the other place could take their electoral allowance as salary to actually get $380,000. For the MPs who are earning $380,000, putting that determination in place would significantly reduce their salary. The Minns Government can jump up and down all it likes about how responsible it is to cap the salaries of the average MP in this place. But unless he has not read the determination, the Premier is actually arguing against a pay cut for members who are not doing their jobs properly and who do not spend their electoral allowance on their duties, but instead pocket that money as salary.

Through the bill, the Premier of this State is saying that there should be a massive pay inequity where the laziest MPs do not get a pay cut, while the hardworking MPs who use all of their electoral allowance continue to earn, on average, $200,000 less than the best paid in the other place. I put that on record because it is not politically palatable for any of us to say, "Can we have our 3.7 per cent pay rise and not just 3 per cent"? We all know the people of New South Wales are doing it hard in a cost-of-living crisis. But let us not for a minute pretend that the Premier is interested in capping his salary or the salary of the vast majority of lazy MPs who take all of their electoral allowance as salary. The very clear evidence is that some MPs are getting $200,000 more than others and, when we reject this determination today, we are rejecting the notion that that is okay.

In the determination, the commissioner has put forward a very sensible compromise, which is that some of that electoral allowance should be moved from 2027 into the communications bucket so that we have to spend it on communications or we do not get it, and such spending needs to be justified with receipts. It is an incredibly sensible determination, but this Parliament has decided that we like the lack of accountability. We like the huge pay discrepancy that rewards the lazy MPs who do not spend their electoral allowance. That is what we are actually passing today. I thank the Premier for continuing to enforce the wild levels of economic inequality in this State. We know exactly where he stands, and that is where we are at with the electoral allowance.

There is a bunch of other sensible things in the determination. As I said, the commissioner and her team sat down with most members in this place, including the Presiding Officers, and talked very clearly about the challenges we face and how to get better accountability over the use of our entitlements. The determination is very sensible and was well consulted on. It includes a comment about how perplexed the commissioner was that we overrode the last determination in relation to pay, because it continues to be lower than the consumer price index. Again, we all know the real politics of this situation. None of us is going to stand here and ask if we can have a bit more money, which is why we should not be making these determinations. It is why we have the independent Parliamentary Remuneration Tribunal.

The most egregious part of the bill is the issue of staffing. I sat in this place in the last term of Parliament and went through the pre-Broderick steps. A bunch of us in this place made a lot of noise about how unsafe this workplace is because of the power differential between MPs and their staff. A lot was done behind the scenes. We set up the parliamentary advisory group at the same time as the Broderick review began. We worked alongside Elizabeth Broderick as she made her findings. At that time, an independent review was also conducted into whether staffing was appropriate. For some reason we never got to see the results officially, but I saw a draft version of the report and it did not make for pretty reading. During our Legislature budget estimates hearings it was admitted that the report stated that our staff, particularly in the upper House, are incredibly overworked, and that is unsustainable.

As part of my work with the parliamentary advisory group, we spoke with survivors and others, read all the reports and spoke with Elizabeth Broderick around what she had found. It was incredibly clear that the risk for staff in this place comes from the fact that they have no rights because of the Members of Parliament Staff Act, or the MOPS Act. Unlike everybody else in New South Wales, they cannot bargain, negotiate, go on strike or do any of the things anybody else can normally do under an industrial award. All of their rights are taken away. If they are subject to an unfair dismissal, they cannot complain about it. There is nowhere for them to go. They cannot go to the Industrial Relations Commission like everyone else. They have no rights. If someone is the only staff member in an office with one MP and they are harassed or sexually assaulted in that office, and they then dare to complain about it, they will lose their job and have no rights when trying to get it back.

Staff in this place have no rights, and they cannot complain. There is a power differential, particularly when Labor and Liberal parties—and other parties, I am sure—have a machine around them that tries to control reputational risk from such incidents. Young staff in particular are so dedicated to their party and their cause that they will work whatever hours and they take it on the chin. They will think, "Okay, this MP was particularly bad to me, but I'm going to put up with that because I don't want the party to look bad." With no rights, that situation is ripe for exploitation. The Broderick report made it crystal clear in its recommendations that we needed to immediately review the MOPS Act. The Greens are on record that we did not vote for the MOPS Act when it was introduced. It should not exist. It should be abolished. Members of Parliament staff should have the same rights as any other worker in the State. The report also stated that there was enhanced risk in single staff member offices or even offices where one staff member sticks around at night. I focus on the very clear recommendation about how risky it is when Legislative Council offices or electoral offices have just one staff member with one MP.

Keeping all of that in mind, and given we have done little else in this place to implement the Broderick recommendations, this determination recognises that we are all probably in breach of our work health and safety obligations because we are overworking our staff. They cannot even take a training day. If there is only one staff member in the office, they cannot do training. What will the MP do that day? There have been ideas about time off in lieu for staff. Again, what happens when it is a sitting day and MPs are told, "You just worked all night, but I am sorry. We've got another sitting day, and you have no other staff." It is ripe for exploitation. The determination very clearly states that we all need more staff because otherwise we are breaching our work health and safety obligations.

Instead, members of this so-called Labor Government say, "I'm sorry. I've heard what you have to say about Broderick. I've heard what you have to say about the risk of exploitation and sexual assault and harassment, and all the other things that go on behind closed doors. I know that three independent reviews have said the staffing is insufficient and things like time off in lieu cannot be done, but you will not have the extra staffing allowance." I have heard arguments from members of the other place. There is a wringing of the hands and they say, "Yes, of course we all want more staff and, in an ideal world, we agree that would be safer. However, logistically, it is just not going to work." One of my colleagues in the other place pointed out very clearly that there is so much excess space on levels 8 and 9 for those ministerial offices, if members wanted to adjust that. But the determination makes it clear that the additional staff should not require much additional space.

The commissioner came to Parliament House to look around and work out whether there was enough space. If the Government and the parliamentary team want to work with us in good faith, we could come up with working from home rosters so that we did not have too many staff in the building, at least in the interim. After every election all of the rooms on level 11 get reconfigured anyway. A huge amount of maintenance that includes building new walls et cetera goes on. It is just not that difficult.

The commissioner's report also states that, when it comes to the 93-odd additional staff for the lower House members, because they have two offices—their electorate offices, where they house most of their staff, and their offices on level 12 at Parliament House—additional staff members could sit in the offices on level 12 and be permanent Sydney-based MP staffers. That would not just alleviate the space concerns and make use of those level 12 offices, which are not used for the vast majority of the year, but also relieve the need for lower House members to spend so much money on transporting their staff from their electorate offices to Sydney. Again, there is so much in the report that is sensible. For the Labor Government to just dismiss it out of hand, decide it knows better, want to preserve incredibly inflated pay for lazy backbenchers and try to make some sort of—

The Hon. Jeremy Buckingham: You only do it because The Greens make you do it. You do it because your party makes you do it.

Abigail: That is right; we spend all of ours because we are subject to a principled party.

I have lost my flow, but members get the point. This is more ridiculous spin from the Minns Labor Government. On behalf of The Greens, who put in so much work asking for additional staff—and I acknowledge that, although Government members cannot say it, Labor also asked for more staff in its submission to the determination—we cannot accept the overriding of the additional staffing component. We owe it to our staff to no longer leave them in such a precarious situation and to our work health and safety obligations.

Later in the debate, during the Committee of the Whole, Abigail further contributed:

The Greens will support the amendments. I make a few comments. Keeping in mind the time, I do not want to go over material that has already been covered. This Government has an increasing habit of just ignoring independent determinations, whether it is an independent report like the Sackar review or something like this in relation to parliamentary remunerations. Maybe we will end up with bills that actually override something that the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal or ICAC comes up with. That is where we are going. We have a government that is so determined to ignore facts and evidence that even the Minister's response on the second reading ignored the very fact that reducing the amount people can take as salary is a pay cut. If members do not believe us, let us make the electoral allowance only able to be taken by those using it for those purposes. That would be the solution to that. It would not bother us, because we do not take it as salary.

Members have talked a lot about entitlement and staff being an entitlement of members. Let us be very clear on what staff are. Staff are actually a resource for the people of New South Wales. The more staff that we have, the more democratic and responsive our elected representatives are. When members have 10 bills in one day just thrown at us the morning of, with no notice, if we have not got our amendments done by the Parliamentary Counsel within 20 seconds because our staff are working on 10 different bills, we hear from the Government that we are somehow holding up the passage of bills and democracy.

Everybody in this place knows that we do not have enough staff, but the people who know it the most are the staff. I pay particular credit and acknowledgement to the staff in my office. I extend that to the other Greens offices, particularly those in the Upper House, who are dealing with constituents across multiple portfolios from the entire State. These constituents are people who have been failed by the Government. They have been failed by government services. That was explicitly recognised in the commissioner's determination, in which she mentions that members of Parliament are now repeatedly described as the last port of call for constituents with intractable problems.

Presenting issues have intensified. Cost-of-living pressures and homelessness are now reaching regional and rural electorates that historically had little of that, particularly in aged care. There are domestic violence spikes tied to disasters and the pandemic, and the fallout from the December 2025 Bondi terrorism attack is driving diverging community concerns around gun laws, protest rights and social cohesion. Complex cases now take weeks or months of liaison that often involve chasing information from Ministers and agencies beyond the member's control before a constituent can even be answered. The determination touched on a noticeable increase in community aggression, especially in electorates with concentrated housing, mental health issues and substance abuse pressures. Staff are increasingly at the front line of confrontations.

One office reported calling for assistance and scheduling a person after threats to commit suicide and burn down a residence. Police assistance and office closures are recurring. That was explicitly acknowledged as one of the main reasons that staff have had such an increase in workload—that and the fact that constituents in incredibly upsetting and desperate states are coming to us for help on all of our different social media channels and on our mobile phones. When someone comes to us saying, "I have just fled a domestic violence situation and I cannot get a house," we do not just put the phone down on them. We spend all day and night trying to find them accommodation so they do not go back to a place of unsafety. That is what our staff are dealing with.

I have a particular staff member whom we employed out of our electoral allowance. She works three days a week and, my goodness, she has a heart of gold. She spends hours on the phone speaking to people about issues across all of the portfolios we work on, particularly workers compensation and the fallout from those cuts. We are constantly sending constituent representative letters and talking people through issues in that area. The issues are complex, and staff have to really understand the workers compensation system to do that. We deal with domestic and family violence. We deal with sexual violence. At lunchtime today I had a half-hour discussion with a constituent who had been sexually abused as a child. We have a bunch of other difficult content. My staff, particularly Lulu in my office, will spend hours responding to people who have been turned away from every government service and Minister. That is far from being out of touch with the population.

What I hear from people who are turning to the far right, becoming antisocial—we talk about social cohesion—or feeling isolated is not just about the cost of living, as though that is just about everything costing a bit more, but also about the breakdown in societal support and not being able to trust the Government to look after people. With decade after decade of increasing cuts to government services and heartless frontline responses in which people are greeted with artificial intelligence and phone button prompts before they can even speak to a real person, people now come to us and to our staff. Our staff are a resource for the State; they are not just a resource for us. That is a really important point. The other point I make is in relation to the Broderick report. The Premier said he had read that report, but clearly he has not. Section 2.3 of the Broderick report recommends:

The Presiding Officers and the Independent Parliamentary Remuneration Tribunal should review workloads within offices of MPs and MLCs, in consultation with MPs and staff, to determine whether current staffing conditions are appropriate and sustainable. This review should identify opportunities to reduce conditions that exacerbate risk, particularly in offices staffed by a single individual and late-night sittings.

That is us. That is every non-crossbench member—from Labor, the Liberal Party and The Nationals—who has just one staff member sitting in their office. All day and all night long, it is just one staff member and their member. The Broderick report identified that as a high-risk situation. That is another independent report that the Government perhaps does not want to acknowledge, and in this parliamentary remuneration determination, the tribunal has done what it was asked to do by Broderick. It has come back and said to members, "You need more staff." I do not know how much more clearly I need to put that to the Premier. This is an issue of workplace health and safety.

Finally, when it comes to the cost, we are talking about $2 million a year. The Government has made out that it is a massive amount of money, but it could start with the $1 billion it does not collect from the pokies. It could start with the billions of dollars in subsidies that it gives to property developers. There are so many places it could get the money from. The idea that the Government would instead threaten that it means 123 fewer childcare protection workers—or whatever—is nuts. The Government has the money for this, and it is being told to do it. The fact that it is not doing it is a real indictment on a government that reckons it is somehow in favour of workers and workers' rights. We absolutely support this amendment. The Greens would have moved the amendment ourselves had the honourable member not done so. We are pleased the member did, and we look forward to the Government seeing sense and agreeing to it in the Lower House.

Read the debate in Hansard here.

6 August 2026