Labor denies bribing One Nation MP with extra staff

Labor insists it is not trying to woo rookie MP David Farley into defecting from One Nation after offering him a much-prized and highly paid extra staffer.

The offer came hand-delivered to the Farrer MP’s Parliament House office on Monday but was rejected by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson over accusations it amounted to a bribe.

“These actions have left David and One Nation deeply concerned that the government is seeking to use taxpayer funds to exert undue political influence over politicians,” Senator Hanson said in a statement on Thursday.

The offer comes as the Labor government seeks to fight off a surge in the polls by the populist One Nation, which has also eaten into the voting base of the right-leaning coalition opposition.

Mr Farley has never publicly ruled out moving to Labor and once even tried to stand as a candidate for the party in 2021, having once also been a member of the Nationals.

He had not asked for more staff from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has power over MPs’ personnel allocations beyond the five granted by default.

Labor frontbencher Amanda Rishworth denied the government was trying to poach the MP.

“Pauline is jumping at shadows,” she told Seven’s Sunrise on Friday.

“If she’s already having trouble keeping her party together, that says something about her.”

The One Nation leader has repeatedly issued the prime minister pleas for more staff, even teaming up with fierce political rival Fatima Payman in September to urge for an overhaul of how personnel are divvied up among parliamentarians.

Senator Payman, who defected from Labor in 2024, on Monday stunned a Senate estimates hearing by accusing Mr Albanese of deliberately sitting on her years-old application for more helping hands in order to make an example of her.

She made a request almost two years previously and received no formal response, while newer MPs were accommodated, she said.

Mr Albanese has been accused of using offers of personnel in quid pro quo arrangements with other parties.

He guaranteed 15 extra staff among Greens MPs earlier in October, days before they voted to block an inquiry into whether he should be the one responsible for allocating advisers.

On Friday, Labor frontbencher Pat Conroy insisted there was good reason for offering Mr Farley extra staff.

“This is an allocation that has been offered to most MPs with large electorates – it’s not unusual,” he told Nine’s Today.

“This is One Nation yet again just trying to politicise an issue that shouldn’t be about politics … this is a storm in the teacup, and One Nation is just desperate to distract.”

Mr Farley’s electorate of Farrer in southern NSW, which he won from the Liberals in a May by-election, is the second largest in the state, just slightly smaller than Greece.

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce accepted an offer of an extra staff member after he defected to the party from the Nationals in December.

Mr Farley is the only crossbench member without additional personnel.