One Nation accuses Australia's prime minister of undue political influence over unsolicited staffer offer

Australia's One Nation party has accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of trying to exert undue political influence by making an unsolicited offer of an additional staff member to one of its MPs.

In a statement posted on social media, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson claimed Albanese offered MP David Farley an additional staff member in an attempt to win over the new politician using taxpayer funds. The extra staffer could cost taxpayers as much as $200,000 in additional salary.

Hanson said the offer was received outside an existing request by One Nation for additional staffers. In her words, 'David did not request this allocation of staff. No reason was provided by the prime minister for the provision of this staff.'

The statement added that the pair had also met privately over the past few weeks in meetings initiated by the prime minister.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a letter authorising the MP for the New South Wales electorate of Farrer to hire another staff member was hand-delivered to Farley's Parliament House office in Canberra on Monday by a member of the prime minister's team.

Hanson said she was concerned Albanese was seeking to use taxpayer funds to exert undue political influence over politicians. She said, 'We have decided to expose these grubby dealings because the public deserves to know what the Albanese Labor government is doing behind closed doors.'

Farley rejected the unsolicited offer, but did not definitively rule out joining Labor. On Thursday he said the attributes he had looked for in a party to represent Farrer were political courage and political tenacity, and that he had made his decision to join One Nation.

Albanese was asked about staffing allocations on Thursday morning, including calls by former Labor senator Fatima Payman for more funding. He said Payman, who sits as an independent, had one more staff member than before she quit Labor to move to the crossbench.

Albanese did not answer questions about whether it was appropriate for the prime minister to be in charge of taxpayer-funded staffing allocations for MPs across parliament. The prime minister's office was contacted for comment.