The Australian Commons

What 59 Prime Ministerial advisers can tell us about government spending, fiscal discipline and the need for real budget limits.

By Jason Gay

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reportedly has 59 personal staff and advisers working in his office.

My first thought wasn’t outrage. It was a question.

If the Federal Government had a hard spending limit, and couldn’t simply borrow more when the numbers didn’t add up, would all 59 still make the cut?

That is a much more interesting question than whether Anthony Albanese personally has too many advisers.

Australia is currently dealing with inflation that remains too high. The Reserve Bank lifted the cash rate again on 29 September, taking it to 4.60 per cent. The RBA says there are several causes, including global energy prices, weak productivity and domestic capacity pressures. Importantly, the RBA also makes clear that government spending forms part of the overall demand in the economy that it considers when assessing inflationary pressure.

When there is too much demand pushing against what the economy can produce, prices rise. The RBA’s main tool for dealing with that is interest rates. So the average Australian with a mortgage gets asked to help solve the problem. Their repayments rise, they have less money left over, they spend less, demand slows and hopefully inflation comes down.

It is a fairly blunt instrument.

Which is why government spending should matter to us.

If households are being told, in effect, to tighten their belts because there is too much money chasing too few goods and services, it is reasonable for taxpayers to look at government and ask whether it is doing the same.

That brings us back to the 59 advisers.

These are personal staff employed in the Prime Minister’s office under the Members of Parliament (Staff) framework. They are distinct from the ordinary Australian Public Service, and their positions are allocated through arrangements ultimately controlled by the Prime Minister. The legislation and Finance guidance say they are employed to assist parliamentarians in carrying out their duties and not for party-political purposes, but they are nevertheless personal staff attached to political office, not an independent public institution.

They are also not cheap.

Current salary rates for senior personal staff range from roughly $156,000 to more than $317,000 in base salary, depending on classification and level. Senior personal employees can also receive a Personal Staff Allowance of $38,635 a year, with superannuation and, in some circumstances, other allowances on top. At the most senior levels, the total employment cost can push beyond $400,000 a year.

Not all 59 people are being paid at those senior levels, so it would be misleading to multiply $400,000 by 59 and declare that the cost of the office. But there is no avoiding the broader point: this represents many millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded employment.

Now, before this becomes a Labor-bashing exercise, it shouldn’t.

This is not an Anthony Albanese invention.

Scott Morrison had 62 personal staff in May 2022. A Parliamentary Library review found that the Prime Minister’s Office had grown from 41 personal staff in 2007 to 61 by 2024. Across government, personal staffing has grown considerably over that period under governments of both political persuasions.

That actually makes the argument more important.

If this were simply one Prime Minister behaving extravagantly, the answer would be easy. Elect a different Prime Minister.

But when the same tendency survives changes of government, we should start looking at the system rather than the person.

And this is only one example.

I am not arguing that Australia could fix its Budget by sacking a few advisers. The Commonwealth spends more than $800 billion a year. Cutting ten or twenty positions in the Prime Minister’s Office would barely register against a Budget of that size.

The point is what happens when the same logic is repeated thousands of times.

One additional position here. Another program there. Another grant. Another department initiative. Another consultant. Another subsidy. Another funding announcement. Individually, each may be relatively small and each may even have a perfectly reasonable justification.

But Budgets are not created by one enormous decision.

They are created by thousands of smaller ones.

And if the final number is larger than the revenue coming in, the Commonwealth can borrow the difference.

That changes the discipline around every individual decision.

Imagine instead that the Federal Government had a genuine spending ceiling. Before the Budget began, an independent body established that, based on sustainable revenue, debt obligations and national savings requirements, the government had a fixed amount available to spend.

No easy increase.

No quietly adding another few billion to the deficit.

No borrowing simply because saying no is politically difficult.

Now reconsider those 59 positions.

Maybe the government would decide every one of them was essential.

Fine.

But that would mean something else could not be funded.

Perhaps 59 advisers become 50. Perhaps they remain 59 and another area takes the cut. Perhaps the government decides the advice they provide is worth every dollar.

The important part is that someone has to choose.

That is the discipline missing when borrowing can continually absorb the difference between what government wants to spend and what government actually raises.

This is also why debates about government waste often go nowhere. One side points to a particular expenditure and calls it outrageous. The other side points out that it represents a tiny fraction of an $800 billion Budget.

Both can be right.

A single questionable expense will not bankrupt Australia. But a culture in which every expense is defended because it is small compared with the total is exactly how very large totals are built.

The issue is not 59 advisers.

The issue is whether our governments operate within real financial boundaries.

Australian households are currently experiencing those boundaries very clearly. Interest rates are at 4.60 per cent. Mortgage repayments have risen. Prices remain elevated. Families make choices every week about what stays and what goes.

Government should face meaningful choices too.

That does not mean treating the Federal Budget like a household budget. Governments are not households. They have different responsibilities, different sources of revenue and legitimate reasons to borrow in particular circumstances.

But one principle translates perfectly well:

Resources are finite, and priorities only become real when saying yes to one thing sometimes requires saying no to another.

That is why Australia needs more than another promise from another Treasurer to be responsible.

We need financial reform.

We need clear rules around spending. We need deliberate debt repayment. We need national savings. We need proper limits around when government can borrow. Most importantly, we need financial boundaries that apply regardless of whether Labor, the Coalition or anyone else occupies the government benches.

Because the question should not be whether you trust Anthony Albanese to spend wisely.

Nor should it be whether you trusted Scott Morrison.

The question is why our system requires us to trust any government to set its own limits.

Perhaps 59 advisers are completely justified.

But if Australia had a fixed budget and every additional dollar required giving up something else, I suspect we would become much better at asking the question.

Does this really make the cut?