Government Services Minister Bill Shorten has defended his department's hiring of a speechwriter to work for him and the agency on a $620,000 contract.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
"I didn't negotiate a wage. She's a lovely, experienced person, and she turns out hundreds of products at work - not just for me - and she mentors staff, she's run training courses," Mr Shorten told ABC radio on Thursday morning.
"And do you know that, a little bit of irony on Radio National this morning, she's received more job offers and more pay-rise offers on LinkedIn since this came out."
Julianne Stewart, revealed in Senate estimates to have been awarded the initial $310,249.50 contract for a year's work - extended for a further year to September 2024 - "has been a professional writer for more than 40 years", Mr Shorten said.
"She has written speeches for ministers, attorneys-general, for prime ministers, ASX-200 CEOs, vice-chancellors and commercial television," he said.
"She ran a team of writers in [the Department of] Prime Minister and Cabinet under prime ministers Abbott and Turnbull [with] five speechwriters and a full-time letter writer."
Mr Shorten said when he had taken over the portfolio, the speechwriter previously doing Ms Stewart's job at the department - which employs 5000 people - had died.
"So they advertised to employ someone. They didn't get anyone they thought was good enough, so they had to go to market."
While he had had "nothing to do" with the awarding of the contract, Mr Shorten said he had been advised that Ms Stewart's remuneration "is equivalent to the lower end of a senior public servant".
While noting the paucity of expertise in the speechwriting field, ABC RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas interrupted the minister to ask if this meant there were "lots of others who are paid like this" in a cost-of-living crisis.
Mr Shorten went on to explain the Australian Public Service salary classification system, saying Ms Stewart was "at the lower band" of the Senior Executive Service (SES).
Rank-and-file members of the APS, which employs more than 150,000 people, are paid according to a salary scale set by the Australian Public Service Commission.
There are three SES bands in the APS classification scale, with salaries ranging from $194,366 to $410,860 a year at 30 June 2023.
The most senior public servants are paid as much more, with salaries as high as $900,000 for a secretary set by the three-member Remuneration Tribunal.
Mr Shorten said when he had become the minister responsible for Services Australia, the agency had been spending $1.3 billion a year on contractors, but had reduced this $500 million.
The agency had increased the proportion of its workforce that is employed directly from 70 per cent to 85 per cent, he said.
Senator Reynolds, who served as defence minister in the Morrison government, raised the tender for the speechwriting contract in estimates on Monday.
Senators and MPs in the Federal Parliament receive a base salary of $225,742, while cabinet ministers are paid significantly more.
Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher shot down union demands for an extra week of annual leave on Thursday.
"The agreements that I've been responsible for, as the government negotiating with the Commonwealth APS has not reflected that change," she told reporters in Canberra.
"We've just settled our bargaining position here across the APS and that isn't reflected in the government's agreement that we've reached with our employees."
The Australian Council of Trade Unions is pushing for five weeks' annual leave for all employees.