Australian Politics

Liberal senator Maria Kovacic about why an additional person had to be hired.

"Do you have the capability within that team to deliver?"

Bit of a loaded question from the Coalition given their record of slashing government jobs.

The article headline is a bit crappy though, with the actual article starting at the very bottom of the page:

Despite Ms Smith not being able to initially provide detail around the hiring of Ms Stewart, she later provided further information about how the contract came about.

The AusTender contract stated the value over two years was $620,499. Ms Smith said 20 months into the contract $447, 516 had been paid, which also covered superannuation, sick and holiday leave. Travel costs would be an additional cost.

Ms Smith said the department had not been able to find a suitable speechwriter. As a result, the department looked to hire someone at market rate, which is higher than what is offered to public servants at around $140,000.

Ms Smith described the decision to hire Ms Smith [I think they mean Stewart here] as a "direct source contract" but wouldn't say who made that final decision.

"Speechwriting, as you will appreciate, is a specialised skill set, and accomplished and available speechwriters remain difficult to source," she said.

Ms Smith clarified her earlier evidence that while the department now has speechwriters as part of their communication team, there were none at the time of hiring of Ms Stewart, who is also tasked with training staff within the department on speechwriting.

A real big non-story to me. They are not being paid 600k to write Bill Shorten's speeches, they are being paid to write his speeches and train staff within the department to write speeches (Assuming the contract won't be extended). While it seems like more of a political job, it is important that ministers are able to effectively communicate with the Australian community.