Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the PM’s move to cut funding for independent staffers is “common sense”.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the PM’s move to cut funding for independent staffers is “common sense”.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

“I don’t think[that’s] reasonable or fair,” Chalmers told ABCInsiders on Sunday morning.

Albanese informed the crossbench on Fridaythat he had cut their staffing allocation to a quarter of what it was in the previous parliament,leaving them with only one adviser each to work through reams of legislation.

The crossbench MPs will all retain four lower-paid and less specialised electorate advisers,who deal with constituency matters,rather than legislation,media and stakeholders,meaning they will still have one more staff member than a government or opposition backbencher.

The previous government gave permission for crossbench MPs and senators to have two advisers and two assistant advisers,plus electorate office staff.

Two key Senate crossbenchers,David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie,are threatening to vote against Labor government legislation in response to the cuts.

Education Minister Jason Clare said independent and minor party MPs should get on with the job and make use of the Parliamentary Library,which Albanese was granting extra resources.

“People come to this job not for the pay,but for the opportunity that it provides to really make a difference,” Clare told Sky News.

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“I think most Australians would say:‘Well,you’ve been elected,now knuckle down and do the job’.”

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He said the prime minister had also cut government and opposition MPs’ access to extra salary payments for staffers.

“I think he’s ripping about one and a half million dollars out of that,” Clare said.

“So everybody’s taken a haircut here,whether it’s government staff,opposition staff.”

Asked if he accepted that independents and minor parties needed additional resources because “they don’t have the support of a full party” when drafting or scrutinising legislations,Chalmers said they would still have a higher staffing allocation than government backbenchers.

“They get an extra quite senior staffer,which other backbenchers don’t get,” he said.

“That’s in recognition of their workload ... But what we don’t want to see is to have a backbench MP who happens to be Labor,Liberal or National,get half as many staff resources as other backbench MPs.

“We want to be reasonable. We tried to be reasonable. This is within the constraints of common sense.”

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