Albanese Promises "Swift Government Response" on MP Safety

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has promised a "swift government response" to safety threats against Australian MPs and their staff, and has floated providing panic buttons for their offices. He made the pledge at a meeting of Labor's MPs and senators, known as the partyroom, the first such meeting since the alleged attack on the Indi MP last week, according to The Guardian.

Panic buttons, also called duress alarms, are devices that let a person quickly alert authorities to a safety incident. Albanese floated providing them for electorate offices, the local offices MPs keep in the communities they represent. The idea is under consideration; no decision has been announced.

Albanese told the partyroom that the week "must be a turning point" in civil discourse and in how threats are responded to. He said MPs had to "put up with the threat environment for too long," and conceded that more investment in the security and safety of politicians was needed.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told the meeting the government was looking at safety at polling booths around election time. Labor also said it would expedite an ongoing review of safety and security in federal government workplaces, with recommendations to be delivered soon.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor told a Coalition partyroom meeting about ongoing conversations with the government on personal safety for MPs.

A separate dispute over staffing also surfaced this week. Senator Fatima Payman quit Labor in 2024 to sit on the crossbench, the group of MPs and senators who belong to no major party. She criticised Albanese for not providing additional personal staff for her office, asking: "Is the prime minister waiting for something, like what happened to Dr Helen Haines, to occur to my office?"

Payman has no personal advisers. An internal document tabled at a Senate estimates hearing, a committee session where officials are questioned about government spending, showed that 16 other crossbench MPs and senators shared 30 advisers between them. At the hearing, Payman asked Minister Don Farrell whether her staff shortfall stemmed from Albanese having a personal grudge against her, and said her staff were severely overworked. She also called the prime minister "petty" for not granting her additional staff, The Guardian reported.