Federal Parliament is currently discussing reforms aimed at forcing politicians to behave better, including penalties like fines and suspension.

While these reforms will be welcomed by the public — especially given most of us would be immediately fired for the kind of behaviour we see regularly in Parliament — they are little more than a fig leaf.

The root causes are structural, workforce development and governance issues. They can’t be fixed with a new HR handbook and a complaint process.

So, while better rules and processes are a good idea, unfortunately, they won’t be enough. This is because – by and large – the quality of talent, intellect, and leadership in politics is so abysmally low.

Think back to the worst job you’ve ever had. Most of us have at least one horror story to tell, maybe involving a toxic boss, unclear responsibilities and accountability, unrealistic expectations or even just unbearable insecurity. Now, imagine a job that combines all of that. This is the life of an MP.

As a politician, like small business owners, you routinely work 80-hour weeks and can never properly ‘switch off’ and have a holiday. It’s relentless.

Like workers in the care or service economies, you spend a lot of time in unpleasant situations pretending to like people. So painful and draining.

Like FIFO workers, you spend 20-plus weeks a year away from home and struggle to maintain any kind of normal relationships. Your family suffers with you.

And like real estate agents, everyone hates you regardless of how good at the job you are, and deep down you know why (and agree with them).

It’s not clear who you report to day-to-day, and the expectations are widely different from minute-to-minute. Despite this, the scrutiny is intense and quite often based on criteria that has little to do with the big priorities.

What kind of person signs up for a job like that? You already know the answer.

As far as I’ve been able to gather from 20 years working in and around politics, and with some notable exceptions, most career politicians tend to fall into four broad categories: Pedestrian idealists, the well-meaning, power-hungry sociopaths, and people who in a moment of passion made a terrible mistake and got trapped.

If we are honest about just how awful the job is, the need to improve it is obvious if we want to have good quality people running the country.

Behaviour is so bad

The behaviour is so bad, and voters now so much more in tune to misogyny and bullying, that many now feel nostalgic for lost times when it was at least made mildly entertaining with sharp wit and humour.

In the corporate world, it’s widely understood that if you want to attract top talent, you need to make the job – and the career path – attractive.

Large businesses now have whole departments working on developing more enjoyable, diverse and supportive environments. Yet, when it comes to politicians, we naively expect them to be very high-quality regardless of the very bad working conditions.

When Australians are asked whether people enter politics to further their own interests or to serve the public, a staggering 75 per cent say they are in it for themselves. Not surprising when you consider the type of people the job tends to attract those with generally low personal and professional attributes, and the wider group severely lacking in diversity.

This is a collection of adults who, when put in a fancy room to discuss the big issues facing the nation, immediately start point scoring and shouting at each other.

A rumpus room filled with individuals who thrive on conflict and ego. People with an obsession for the tactical instead of the strategic: Leading to lies, abuse and the expectation of impunity for both.

As their bosses, I think it’s time we took more responsibly and stronger action to change the culture in parliament. But we can’t fiddle with the edges, we need proper reform, starting with the value proposition of why you’d even want to be an MP in the first place.

This will mean some big changes. MPs need way more staff and support. And they need much better pay. Right now, a backbencher earns about $230,000 a year. Yes, for most people, that is an extraordinary amount of money.

But how can we attract our best institutional leaders to the man-baby rumpus room when they can quite easily earn 10, 20 or 30 times that running a business, with much more support, much less scrutiny and still go home at the end of the day feeling a sense of community and economic accomplishment.

The demands of the job are just too great. If we want to attract good quality people to politics — individuals who have the intellect, integrity, and leadership skills needed — we need to pay them significantly more.

They also need proper support to engage with the political cycle so they don’t burn out, and can lead otherwise relatively normal lives.

They need better job security, with more generous pensions for people who lose their seats, and proper compensation for the years of misery they endure.

I feel defeated to admit it, but we really do get what we pay for in Australian politics. Unless we’re willing to invest more in our politicians, we will continue to be governed by a collection of people who have more interest in ‘the game’ than ‘the job’.

Peter Stahel is managing director and co-owner of Essential, a progressive research and communications company, and a former Greens adviser