There's a lot of movement going on in Canberra's parliament house - quite literally.
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Staff from former Coalition ministers are packing up offices and moving out before parliament house staff go in and clean up in preparation for the new arrivals.
One of those new arrivals is Whitlam MP Stephen Jones, who is now Financial Services Minister and Assistant Treasurer.
"The place at the moment, it looks like a removalists' warehouse," Mr Jones said.
"Not just my office, the whole parliament. It's all out, all change so there's a lot of movement going on this week."
The appointment marks Mr Jones' first ministerial role; while he has held various portfolios for Labor since 2013 when he handled the Regional Communications role, they were all in Opposition.
With responsibilities that include policy and regulation in the banking, insurance and superannuation industries, Mr Jones said his workload has "probably tripled".
That said, Mr Jones now has a lot of assistance he can call on.
"I've just come off the back of three days of back-to-back briefings," he said.
"When I was a shadow minister I had one advisor. I now have all of the resources of the Department of Treasury, of the tax office, the ACCC, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the prudential regulator APRA."
The ability to get information now is much easier than when he was sitting on the other side of the fence.
"If it was publicly available information you can get it but you didn't get any of the confidential private briefings," he said of his time as a shadow minister.
"And you can't ask them to go and do stuff and expect a brief to arrive on your desk the next day."
Stepping up to his first ministerial role could be a bit daunting, so Mr Jones said he has sought advice from previous ministers - from both sides of the parliamentary divide.
"I made contact with my predecessor Jane Hume, who reached out and wished me all the best," he said.
"Also I'll be talking to people who have had this role in the past, like David Bradbury who was over at the OECD.
"Then there's former ministers who I'm very close to, Greg Combet, Wayne Swan, Lindsay Tanner and Jenny Macklin.
"They've offered themselves up as mentors and advisors."
Stephen Jones' Canberra CV
- Oct 2013: Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure
- March 2014: Shadow Assistant Minister for Health
- May 2016: Shadow Minister for Regional Communications
- July 2016: Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government
- June 2019: Shadow Assistant Treasurer, Shadow Minister for Financial Services
- January 2021: Shadow Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation
- May 2022: Minister for Financial Services, Assistant Treasurer
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