Parliamentary Staff

As we wait to find out the shape of a Government, spare a thought for all the parliamentary staff who work for MPs, because a couple of weeks ago they were all sacked!

All staff who work directly for an MP or Minister have their jobs end a month after the election, even if their MPs get re-elected.

Very tough in a party which has lost MPs, as the staff numbers get slashed almost in proportion to the number of MPs. A lot of good ACT, NZ First and United Future staff will be looking for jobs. I imagine quite a few will be picked up by National, but even existing National staff are not guaranteed to stay on.

I think I got sacked seven times while working at Parliament. Luckily I was rehired seven times also. My record for sackings has probably been beaten by OIA Girl though who holds the all-time survivor record!

It really can be a miserable time though. No-one takes on a job at Parliament expecting stability but when the decisions come on who is not staying on, it hits you really hard as you form some great friendships with colleagues. The survivors almost feel worse than those not kept on. I was actually in tears after the last staff reshuffle when Don took over as leader from Bill. It was truly a miserable day as so many mates were not kept on. The nice thing is that almost without exception all the ex-staff end up in better jobs with more pay and fewer hours before too long. Or pregnant eh Megs 🙂

The Herald has a useful story on the boost to the Leader’s Office National gets by having an extra 22 MPs – being a whopping $1.7 million. That is going to make a huge difference, as long as they don’t spend it all on bus shelter ads 🙂

Other resources come with new MPs. Each new MP gains a secretary and one or two electorate agents (one for list MPs, two for electorate MPs). So ten new electorate MPs and twelve new list MPs is 54 extra staff. And List MPs get around a $45,000 budget and electorate MPs around $65,000 so around $1.2 million extra funding for electorate based activities.