Bill Shorten’s speech writer paid over $300,000 a year

A senate estimates revealed Services Australia paid the personal speech writer of Bill Shorten $620,000 over two years.

Transcript

00:00 a one-year contract with Miss Stewart. The contract had an option of a 12-month

00:05 extension which was exercised and so the 600 and something thousand that you

00:11 quoted is the sum of the two years for Miss Stewart. We are clearly in the wrong

00:15 business. To clarify, the annual contract for the speechwriter where there is

00:21 capability within the department is $300,000 per year? It's in that order.

00:27 So senators who work in this building get paid about $230,000 a year.

00:35 Shadow Ministers get paid less than that. MPs in the government and senators in

00:42 the government on the crossbench and in the opposition get paid less than the

00:48 speechwriter that Minister Shorten, it appears, has personally requested to

00:56 write speeches for him when there is a 180 FTE capability that is already being

01:03 paid for within the department. And to be clear, the department didn't say we

01:10 don't have capacity. This has come from the Minister. So the department

01:14 hasn't, to your knowledge, offered this as a suggestion. This has come from the

01:19 Minister saying this is what I need to be able to do my job.

01:23 the details around the establishment of the contract is something that I'm still working on.