In an email sent to hundreds of staff in late May, Graeme Anderson, the assistant secretary of the security branch of the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS), played down concerns about lax security at Parliament House, which were first revealed by BuzzFeed News.

“There are bad days at the office, and then there are really bad days at the office," Anderson wrote. "We don’t know yet how bad a day at the office recent negative media attention is yet, but it’s highly unlikely to be as bad as poor Otto’s view from the attic.

“From 2003 to 2016 the number of Australians killed by shark attacks was 27, the same number as died from snake bites and the same number that died from bee/wasp and hornet stings," he continued. "You’ll be relieved to know in the same period no Australian died from a biological or chemical attack.”

Anderson’s “bad day” came after a grilling at Senate Estimates over a BuzzFeed News story that revealed serious deficiencies in security at Parliament House.

Officers said their lives had been put at risk after they were forced to wear cheap disposable painting suits when testing potentially deadly white powder that was mailed to former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Instead of following the Parliament House security manual’s “response to white powder detection” procedure and calling the ACT Fire & Rescue Hazardous Material team, officers from the building's loading dock were sent to test the powder themselves.

Security staff told BuzzFeed News they haven't been formally trained in how to operate the mobile testing device used to determine whether powder was hazardous, and despite a $126 million security upgrade currently underway in Parliament House, they are not equipped to do their jobs properly.

In his May email Anderson dismissed officers' concerns that their lives were being put at risk, and took a swipe at the whistleblowers leaking from his department.

"For those of you who have frequented my office and managed to look past my beloved Melbourne Football Club paraphernalia you may have noticed a picture above my door that I got when I was in Amsterdam that I hang there to remind me to keep all things in perspective," he wrote.

"The picture was taken of a reflective Otto Frank in 1961 looking out the window of his attic onto the canal of Prinsengracht. Otto Frank was Anne Frank’s father and the only surviving member of his family from the Holocaust."

The photo in question was actually taken on May 3, 1960 by photographer Arnold Newman at the official opening of the Anne Frank House museum.

Staff described Anderson’s email as bizarre.

