Department secretary Natalie James wears tie to estimates after Sarah Henderson questions Jim Betts on dress code

Ms James, the Employment and Workplace Relations department secretary, told The Canberra Times she purchased the blue floral tie from an op-shop near her home in Melbourne over the weekend "because ties were on my mind".

She confirmed she saw Liberal senator Sarah Henderson call out Infrastructure Department secretary Jim Betts about his casual attire and a lack of tie during last week's Senate estimates.

"I noticed you don't wear a tie to estimates, is there any particular dress code that applies to the department?" Senator Henderson asked Mr Betts on Wednesday.

Mr Betts replied: "No ... I ask people to use their skill and judgement."

He noted Nationals senator Matthew Canavan and independent senator David Pocock had fronted estimates at times sans tie.

Later in the same hearing, Senator Henderson also asked Mr Betts to comment on the fact he had worn a T-shirt to a supply chain summit in Brisbane. The T-shirt featured former United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

"I like wearing T-shirts with lawyers on them," Mr Betts told the committee.

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Ms James said she has noticed more people in Canberra wear ties than "anywhere else in the country".

"It's a statement that when I first came back to Canberra after having been gone for a while, I was really struck by how many people were wearing ties, which was not the case when I worked in Melbourne," she said.

"It was one of the things that really struck me."

Ms James said the idea to wear a tie was also partly inspired by an earlier interview with another media outlet.

"Then when I did an interview for The Mandarin, they put your head on a cartoon picture of someone who's wearing a tie, which I thought said something about what the expectations are of who a secretary should be, maybe what a secretary should wear so when I saw this in the op shop, I kind of liked it and thought it might work," she said.

Estimates, they never get tie-ersome.

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