Anthony Albanese blanks Pauline Hanson’s requests for more staff as One Nation’s parliamentary team grows
The Prime Minister has refused to respond to written requests from Pauline Hanson to be granted more advisors.
The Prime Minister has refused to respond to written requests from Pauline Hanson to be granted more advisors, with the One Nation leader arguing her growing parliamentary party should be treated the same as the Greens.
“I am writing to place One Nation’s request on the record and ask that our allocation now be reviewed and updated as a matter of priority,” Senator Hanson wrote on August 11, in a letter to Anthony Albanese obtained by The West.
“I wrote to you on 4 February 2026, when One Nation had five federal parliamentarians: four senators and one member of the House of Representatives. To date, I have received no response to this letter”, the One Nation leader noted.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.“Since then, David Farley has won the Farrer by-election. We now have six federal parliamentarians: four senators and two members of the House. We have since reviewed and substantially reduced our previous request, benchmarking it directly against your allocation to the Australian Greens.”
In her letter, Senator Hanson noted that the allocation of taxpayer funded staff for a minor political party was vested solely in the Prime Minister under the Members of Parliament Act (MOP(S) Act).
“Commonwealth law uses five members as the threshold for a recognised non-government minority party. The Australian Greens meet that threshold and you have allocated their adviser staffing on that basis”, Senator Hanson argued.
“One Nation now meets this threshold. The Australian Greens have 11 parliamentarians and are allocated 17 personal employee positions. We therefore ask that One Nation’s personal staffing allocation be determined on a proportionate basis consistent with the allocation you have provided to the Greens.”
At present One Nation’s team of six federal parliamentarians are only allocated four advisers in total, with the party requesting the number be boosted to nine staff, or 1.5 staff per MP.
Last year Greens Leader Larissa Waters argued it was “completely inappropriate that minor party and Independent parliamentary staffing is entirely at the discretion of the Prime Minister.”
The Prime Minister’s office declined to comment when contacted by The Nightly.
