Staff duties grey area — Bridges
‘Really important’ that Parliamentary Service gives MPs advice
National Party leader Simon Bridges says there is “an area of grey” in terms of what constitutes political and non-political work by parliamentary staffers and he welcomes scrutiny by the review into bullying at Parliament.
“Where there is a parliamentary purpose, it is clearly acceptable,” Bridges told the Herald. “But it is really important the Parliamentary Service ensure that MPs and staff know where the line is so that the rules are followed.
“That does require Parliamentary Service to make sure they are educating and showing us the way.”
He was commenting in the light of claims by a former staff member of North Shore MP Maggie Barry, that staff were expected to conduct partypolitical work such as writing the MP’s regular column, including on the Northcote byelection, and a pamphlet for a National Party conference for over 60-year-olds.
The staff member concerned told the Weekend Herald he had complained to Parliamentary Service that in some weeks up to half of his work was party work.
He made the claims when Parliamentary Service was looking into an employment dispute in August involving another staff member who accused Barry of bullying and harassment.
Neither works for Barry any longer. Bridges said he had no cause to have concern.
“She denies the allegations. They were investigated by Parliamentary Service and they found there was no bullying or harassment.”
He welcomed the wider review commissioned by Speaker Trevor Mallard to examine bullying and harassment at Parliament, which will invite confidential submissions from current and former staff going back to 2014.
Mallard declined to comment. Barry disputes all allegations and said Parliamentary Service had looked into them and “there was no finding that bullying or harassment had occurred. I have wished the employees concerned well and so I am surprised they are being repeated in a partial, selective and incomplete way,” she said.
Electoral law expert Andrew Geddis says MPs pressing staff to do political work gave them a far greater advantage in elections than non-MPs and the situation may need closer scrutiny.
“Taxpayer funding to hire MPs’ staff is given so that they can do their jobs as elected representatives, not to help them win re-election,” said Geddis, a professor of law at Otago University.
“If it gets misused for party purposes, sitting MPs get a massive advantage against their unfunded challengers.”
Parliamentary Service, the employer of MPs’ staff, needed to be on guard to prevent it from happening.
Geddis said allegations of misuse of parliamentary funding was not new. In 2005 Auditor General Kevin Brady had investigated claims that parties were using parliamentary funding for political advertising.
“It may be something similar is needed in this case,” Geddis said.
Brady found that parties in Parliament had unlawfully spent $1.17 million on what he deemed to be political advertising — most of which was on Labour’s pledge card.
Most parties repaid the funds but Parliament also changed the rules so that, in future, the types of expenditure previously found to be unlawful, fell within the rules.
Another electoral law specialist, Graeme Edgeler, said staff were allowed to be political to quite a large extent and it would boil down to what was in their employment contract.