Four Labor figures who are or have previously worked in government, all speaking on condition of anonymity to detail their inner workings, said McCrone was effectively the government’s “campaign manager” dealing with party pollsters and researchers such as the firm QDOS by John Armitage. They said he often directed campaign phone calls and planned media messages.
“She’s campaigning for four years, not four weeks,” a source said.
A government employee said: “This is all during working hours.”
Adem Somyurek tried to downplay his role in the Labor branch stacking scandal, despite the damning findings. Credit: Paul Jeffers
An Andrews government spokeswoman did not respond to specific questions about the amount of leave McCrone took for political work and did not respond on the record about whether political researcher briefings should be considered campaign work.
“All staff in the Prime Minister’s Office are on leave in accordance with the Ministry’s Staff Code of Conduct, as appropriate,” the spokeswoman said.
The code of conduct for the roughly 90 employees in Andrews’ office states that “off-hours volunteering in a campaign role, including campaign committee membership, is permitted.” But it says that “ministerial staff should not carry out party political activities while using time off provisions instead of being. Party political work should be done outside working hours, or during holidays annual or unpaid”.
Liberal Leader Matthew Guy said the prime minister should have resigned over the report’s findings, but his office did not respond to a specific question about whether his own staff were campaigning during off-hours. work Credit: Joe Armao
Integrity agencies are willing to separate the work of ministerial advisers from the task of choosing the party to which their MP belongs. Laws were changed in 2019 to ban election office staff from working on campaigns in reaction to the redshirt bug.
The Operation Watts report noted that any new sanctions for employees engaged in party-specific work should take into account “activities where it is difficult to separate the political aspect of the party from the work” and a “communication reasonable” between party officials and government staff. He said any penalty should be weighed against the degree of recklessness of the breach of the rules.
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said Andrews should have resigned over the report’s findings, but his office did not respond to a specific question from The Age about whether his own staff engaged in the campaign during working hours.
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“The Liberal Party actively encourages all staff and members to follow relevant workplace codes of conduct. The Liberal Party supports the recommendations of Operation Watts,” an opposition spokesman said.
Guy said he would increase funding to IBAC and the Ombudsman, but denied the Liberal Party had any integrity issues, despite The Age and 60 Minutes previously exposing a branch stacking scheme within the match
Center for Public Integrity research director Catherine Williams said people paid by taxpayers should not be doing work unrelated to public duties, such as dealing with political issues and other government business. He said the use of ministerial staff to win elections exacerbated the “incumbency effect”, which gave elected MPs an advantage over aspiring politicians who do not have public staff at their disposal.
“The issue goes straight to the heart of the ethical use of public resources,” he said.
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Several Labour, Coalition and Greens sources said it was common for frontline MPs’ staff to also be involved in the party’s election planning.
Some politicians and staff from the main parties described the integrity agencies’ recommendations as naïve and puritanical. They said the legal-minded heads of integrity did not understand the day-to-day reality of political office.
“All the people employed by a politician are employed to get that politician elected. What is the crime that IBAC is trying to solve here?” said a Labor source, arguing that an extreme scenario would see public servants with no political background working for ministers.
A Liberal source said staff from opposition offices were also involved in election planning.
“This will affect Labour, the Libs, cross banking, Fiona [Patten]everyone.”
A spokeswoman for the Greens said electoral office staff did not campaign because the Parliamentary Administration Act prohibited them from doing so. However, the spokeswoman said there was nothing to stop Greens leader Samantha Ratnam’s staff from doing so.
IBAC commissioner Robert Redlich told the Australian Financial Review on Thursday that he was “very frustrated” that legal blockers were preventing him from publishing two other investigations into potentially corrupt conduct.
These include Operation Richmond, which is investigating the Andrews government’s dealings with the United Firefighters Union, and Operation Sandon, which is looking into property consultant John Woodman. Andrews has been interviewed for both investigations.
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