One Nation SA says it will not support 'one scrap of legislation' by Labor

One Nation SA has issued an ultimatum to oppose every piece of legislation introduced by the government, arguing it has been short-changed when it comes to staffing allocations. But the government is standing firm, saying One Nation is given seven extra staff for its seven state MPs. What's next? One Nation's decision will limit the government's options to get legislation through the upper house, forcing Labor to work with Greens on bills that don't have the support of the Liberals. South Australia's One Nation has vowed to block every Labor government bill following a dispute over staffing allocations. Upper house MP and One Nation SA's leader Cory Bernardi said the party requested the same number of staff as other minor parties but today was "officially denied". The party claimed it was allocated 2.6 full-time equivalent staff members but the Greens, who has two upper house MPs over One Nation's seven in both houses, was given 3.6 full-time equivalent staff. "One Nation's been denied the same political resources that have been made available to the Greens. It's been denied the similar resources which is being made to the Liberal Party, you got to ask why," Mr Bernardi said. "There's no justification for it and the message is very clear: we will not support one scrap of legislation by this government until the playing field is level." But Attorney-General Kyam Maher disputed that, arguing One Nation has been allocated more staff than the Greens. He said lower house MPs each get 2.6 full-time equivalent staff, while members of the Legislative Council receive 1.6. On top of that, Mr Maher said, extra staff are allocated on "a case-by-case basis" to help with "legislative load they face from the government and the opposition". He said One Nation SA have been given seven extra staff for their seven state MPs while four extra staff were assigned to Greens, the same allocation for the party during its previous term of parliament. "It's not a number necessarily per person in parliament, it is a recognition of the extra legislative load that's faced," Mr Maher said. "If they [One Nation] don't want to have the emergency measures possible for the state of South Australia during a fuel crisis and they want to vote against it because they're not getting the perks that they want, I think South Australians would judge that accordingly." It means that when the Liberal Party opposes a bill, the government will need two crossbench votes to pass legislation through parliament rather than one. The crossbench is comprised of three One Nation MLCs, two Greens and Fair Go's Sarah Game, formerly of One Nation. Asked about the difficulty of getting legislation through the upper house, Mr Bernardi said: "That's their [Labor's] problem, it's not my problem." "They are playing petty politics, just like they always do, they never missed an opportunity to stick it to their opponents," he said. "When they come begging and screaming for us to support one of their schemes, there's going to be a long conversation." One Nation upper house MP Carlos Quaremba said a lack of staff would make it "extremely difficult to cast our eyes over all the legislation and give it the due diligence which required". "We don't want to stop progress but [at] the same time we need the resources to do the job we've been elected to do correctly and efficiently," he said.