Prime minister Anthony Albanese’s decision to cut crossbench staff amounted to conduct that breached workplace law and required staff to work longer hours, former political staffer Sally Rugg has claimed in an updated court filing.
In her statement of claim filed on Friday, Rugg – the former chief of staff for independent MP Monique Ryan – argued that Albanese’s June 2022 decision amounted to a request to work unreasonable additional hours.
Rugg alleged that by this conduct the commonwealth breached the national employment standards and the law on maximum weekly hours, which could broaden the commonwealth’s liability to other staff of crossbench MPs if accepted by the federal court.
Rugg is suing the commonwealth and Ryan for terminating her employment due to a refusal to work what she says were unreasonable additional hours.
In March the federal court rejected Rugg’s bid to be reinstated to her job, meaning the case will now proceed to a full hearing of claims that Rugg’s hours worked and alleged threats to dismiss her breached the Fair Work Act.
The statement of claim, released by the court on Monday, contained few new details of the breakdown in Rugg and Ryan’s personal relationship but sharpened the focus on the Albanese government’s staffing cut.
It said that Albanese was aware of the workload on staffers from Kate Jenkins’ Set the Standard report which found a culture of “long and irregular hours including on weekends, extensive travel, high levels of stress and presenteeism being highly valued”.
The claim noted that on 24 June, Albanese told Ryan and the rest of the crossbench that he had determined they “would be entitled to employ one full-time personal staff member at the adviser classification”, down from four granted by Scott Morrison in the previous parliament.
MPs also have four electorate staff, meaning the prime minister’s decision cut their allocation from eight staff total to five.
The statement of claim noted that after the decision Rugg was hired as chief of staff to perform “duties that were, prior to the prime minister’s direction, performed by multiple parliamentary staffers employed by independent members”.
The claim argued that Albanese’s staffing cut “constituted a request or requirement that personal staff of independent members, including Ms Rugg, work additional hours that were not reasonable, within the meaning in s 62(1) of the Fair Work Act”.
Rugg was paid a base salary of $136,607, which amounted to $69.13 an hour for 38 hours work a week.
Rugg received the “personal staff allowance”, a payment of $30,205 for additional hours. But this payment was equivalent to just 8.4 hours of work a week at her base salary rate, her statement of claim argued. Rugg “was not compensated for any hours she worked” in excess of about 46.4 hours a week, it said.
The statement of claim said that from July to December Rugg “regularly worked over 65 hours a week including weekends” and “worked an average of 58 hours a week”.
Rugg has alleged that the additional hours “worked by reason of the prime minister’s direction were not reasonable” because Albanese’s decision was a “major change likely to have significant effect on employees”, but staff were not consulted as required by their pay deal.
“Neither the commonwealth nor Mr Albanese made any inquiries or investigations as to whether and to what extent the prime minister’s direction would result in personal staff of independent Members working in excess of the hours compensated by the PSA,” the claim alleged.
Rugg has added a claim of “serious contravention” against the commonwealth, based on the fact it “knew that personal staff who received the PSA were expected to, and did, work additional hours above 38 hours per week”.
It cited both the Setting the Standard report, and numerous complaints made by independent MPs through the media about the staffing cut.
