Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges that lobbying can result in the development of policies that favour the interests of private corporations over the interests of the Australian public;

(2) notes that there is a lack of transparency over the relationship between lobbyists and Ministerial offices;

(3) recognises that breaches of the Lobbying Code of Conduct are rarely identified by the Attorney-General's Department and that there are currently no serious penalties for breaching the Lobbying Code of Conduct; and

(4) commits to:

(a) extending the Register of Lobbyists to include registered professional lobbyists acting on behalf of third parties, services firms and lobbyists acting on behalf of businesses and industry bodies;

(b) extending the cooling-off period for former MPs and senior government officials to three years in keeping with international best practice;

(c) introducing new penalties for breaching the Lobbying Code of Conduct, such as suspending lobbyists from operating for up to two years; and

(d) ensuring the National Anti-Corruption Commission has the ability to investigate alleged breaches of the Lobbying Code of Conduct and enforce penalties.

The corridors of this House are roamed by lobbyists given free rein to talk to whichever politicians they please. Too often they are close and old friends of some of our ministers and staffers, hired because of their personal connections, and useful to corporate interests because they open doors that 99.9 per cent of Australians will never have access to. This is a broken system. The most powerful people in our country spend vastly more time speaking to employees of lobbying firms than they do to people on JobSeeker, to tradies, to students, to small-business people or to refugees. Lobbying firms and powerful corporations are experts at political persuasion. They've figured out how to turn politicians' personal relationships into profit, and the loser is the Australian people.

Public servants and elected representatives must act with integrity, transparency and honesty. In recent decades in Australia we've seen access and influence skew increasingly to the interests of businesses and powerful individuals. Lobbying aims to influence government decisions, such as policymaking, legislation, procurement and grants. Over the past 30 years commercial lobbying in Australia has grown into a lucrative multibillion-dollar-a-year industry. It's hard to think that industry and those private interests don't expect a return on their massive investment.

At a federal level, a Lobbying Code of Conduct applies only to professional or third-party lobbyists placed on a register of lobbyists operating under an administrative code of conduct. That code of conduct is inadequate. In-house lobbyists are not subject to the code of conduct and they're not included on the lobbyists registry. Almost 1,800 in-house lobbyists currently hold orange passes, which give them unrestricted access to secure areas of Parliament House. We don't know who they are. We don't know who gave them access. Only one in four of our lobbyists is actually on our Register of Lobbyists. We don't know who our government representatives are meeting with and we don't know why. Responsibility for monitoring lobbyists activities in Parliament House lies with the Attorney-General's Department, but this is a toothless system. The penalty for any breach of the code is deregistration from the register, but no fine—a punishment approximately as severe as being whacked about the face with a tissue.

Ministerial and staffer diaries are an invaluable accountability mechanism. They help the public know who has access to our ministers, and they help them to know those issues that are of interest to those who do have access to the ministers. We should know about the timing, the frequency and the nature of representations made to ministers and senior staffers by lobbyists. Ministerial and staffer salaries are paid by public funds. It is difficult to conceive of any rational basis for refusing publication of those diaries.

Another integrity concern is former politicians, senior political staff and high-ranking government officials leaving office then taking on related roles in the private sector and lobbying on behalf of their new employees—the so-called 'revolving door'. One in four former ministers takes on a role with a special interest group after leaving politics, and nearly 40 per cent of our registered federal lobbyists worked for the government in some role before they became lobbyists—how cosy.

Lobbying is a legitimate part of the democratic process, but it must be carried out ethically and transparently. Our ministerial standards and the Lobbying Code of Conduct are sketchy, limited and unenforceable. The regime imposes weak rules with no independent oversight and no real punishments for infringement. These rules do not ensure integrity or transparency. It is no wonder that the public has such little faith in the integrity of what goes on in this place and that it fears that influence can be bought in this country.

Our electoral act should be amended to legislate a lobbying regime, replacing and expanding upon the current toothless Lobbying Code of Conduct. Administrative responsibility for that code should be placed with the Attorney-General's Department, and the Anti-Corruption Commission should have the ability to investigate breaches of that code. We need more transparency over ministers' diaries. We have to enforce revolving door bans. The people of Australia deserve to have faith in the integrity of their government.

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