Crucial Senate crossbench party, the Jacqui Lambie Network, has warned of voting difficulties in the upper house due to the largest ever office overflow into the House of Representatives.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
ACM has learned a remarkable three new senators elected in the seismic result of the May 21 election, JLN Senator Tammy Tyrrell, UAP Senator Ralph Babet and Labor Senator Fatima Payman, have had to have offices disadvantageously placed on the other side of the building.
Two senators were accommodated over in the House of Representatives in 2016, but this is adding to crossbench concern about the Prime Minister's decision to cut the staffing allocation in the 47th Parliament from four to one.
It is understood the overflow of senate offices is due to a high number of Labor ministers coming from the lower house, so not as many Senate offices were vacated in the changeover of power.
The three senators were chosen as they were the last three senators elected.
"I'm just grateful to have an office anywhere, to be honest. It's a bit novel to put a senator in the wrong side of the building but I'm all about silver linings," Senator Tyrrell said.
"Jacqui and I are seeing it as step one of our grand plan to win an outright majority in the House of Reps. We don't have any seats there yet, but we have an office there now. Baby steps."
Some assistant ministers are also in House of Representatives' backbencher offices due to overflow from the ministerial wing.
But the placement of senators on the other side of the large Parliament House building could make things very difficult for attendance at important divisions in the senate. Parliamentarians have a strict, timed four-minute window to get to their chambers when called by the bells.
READ MORE
A Reps office run to the Senate will be testing as the three senators are on different floors to the chamber and they will have to navigate corridor turns and the centre of the building.
"When we timed the walk it took four minutes to get from Senator Tyrrell's office to the Senate chamber," a JLN spokesperson said.
"They lock you out from voting if you're not there inside four minutes. There's physically no way we're going to make every vote."
The walks have been tested and under four minutes was regarded as possible.
Any potential change to the four-minute window would be a matter for the Senate. It is understood physical alterations to the building were also a potential option, but this would not immediately relieve the office allocation problem.
A record number of crossbenchers were elected in the May election and last month Mr Albanese infuriated them when he advised their parliamentary advisers would be slashed from four to one.
The MPs and senators will still have four electorate staff and the Prime Minister has promised to increase resources to the Parliamentary Library as a trade-off.
ACM sought comment from the Usher of the Black Rod and the leader of government business in the Senate, Katy Gallagher.