David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I rise to today to speak to the Lobbying (Improving Government Honesty and Trust) Bill 2025, and I start by acknowledging that the bill was first introduced into the other place by the member for Kooyong, Dr Monique Ryan.

This bill is about an issue that cuts to the core of how decisions are made in this country: lobbying and the urgent need to reform the way that it's regulated. It's not always visible to the public. It rarely dominates headlines, but it influences everything that happens in this place, from how policies are shaped to which voices are heard and which are ignored. Before I was elected as a senator I, like so many Australians, was deeply frustrated by politics. I was disappointed by government decisions that made little sense. I was frustrated that often policies and decisions seemed to ignore communities and evidence based policy. They seemed to ignore what the best and brightest—the experts and scientists—were telling us. I was a little perplexed at how powerful voices often seemed to win out while ordinary Australians struggled to be heard. When I arrived in parliament, part of the reason for that became very clear—a system of influence that operates behind closed doors, protected by outdated rules and a lack of transparency.

Lobbying plays a legitimate and vital role in our democracy. We need experts, community groups and advocates to inform policy and raise concerns, and I welcome them into this place. But that role must be open and accountable, not concealed behind legal loopholes and privileged access. What we have today is anything but open or accountable. A recent report from Transparency International Australia found that federal lobbying rules are the worst in the country, scoring just 17 out of 100, compared to a score of 75 for those in Queensland. It's pretty clear how weak they are here at a federal level. Other jurisdictions require publishing of ministerial diaries, have an independent watchdog and have lobbying laws with teeth. But the most striking failure of federal lobbying rules is that 80 per cent of lobbyists are not even considered lobbyists.

Most Australians assume that corporate government relations teams from companies like Qantas, Woodside, Santos and others are regulated as lobbyists, but they're not. And talking to people that I represent, when I talk about this, they're shocked and appalled that this is the status quo in Canberra. What about industry peak bodies who clearly are trying, on behalf of their members, to speak to the government, to put forward their views, to lobby? The Australian energy producers who represent the gas industry or the Pharmacy Guild—they're not even considered lobbyists either. These groups should have access; these views are important. But these groups should not be excluded from the federal lobbying register and code of conduct. They face no obligation to disclose meetings or report their activities. They can be granted a sponsored pass to this building and no-one is required to say who they are and who gave them access or for what purposes.

These lobbyists can walk into a minister's office unannounced while community organisations wait weeks for a response to a meeting request, if they get one at all. At any given time, over 1,500 individuals hold all-access passes to Parliament House. In the last parliament, at the estimates before the election, I asked, and there were over 2,000 sponsored passholders to this building—and that excludes staff, volunteers, family. Clearly they don't need to be made public, but, when it comes to sponsored passholders for organisations, for companies and for industry groups, there is a very strong argument that they should, because we currently don't know their names. We don't know which MPs or senators sponsored them and we certainly don't know who they're meeting with and what decisions they are having with decision-makers. This isn't oversight. This is not accountability. It's a system built for insiders, not the public, and we need to and can change that.

The need for reform is urgent. We need a single comprehensive lobbying register that covers all lobbyists, including those who work in-house for powerful organisations, corporations and other groups. We need meaningful rules, not a code of conduct so weak that it's been described as 'dishwater'. We need real enforcement and serious consequences for those who breach them. Asking at estimates, it seems like the worst thing that can happen if you breach the Lobbying Code of Conduct is a three-month holiday from lobbying, which doesn't stop you from accessing the building with a sponsored pass; you just can't be a lobbyist. In other similar jurisdictions there are civil, sometimes criminal, penalties, as there should be for breaching privileged access and the rules around that to this building. We need transparency. We need published ministerial diaries. We need quarterly disclosures showing who lobbyists meet with, for how long and about what, and the Senate will know full well how hard it is to get these details out of government ministers. That should be a base-entry-level requirement of being a minister and working on behalf of the people of Australia—to be transparent.

Last year I secured support for a Senate inquiry into lobbying, and it confirmed what many of us suspected: the system is fundamentally broken. But it also showed this appetite for reform, even from within the lobbying industry itself. Sadly, that appetite hasn't been matched by political will from the major parties. Repeatedly, I've seen them resist even modest changes that would make the system more transparent, and I want to acknowledge my crossbench colleagues—Senator Lambie, the Greens and others—who have repeatedly pushed for more transparency around lobbying, for the release of ministerial diaries, only to be teamed up against by the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and the National Party. And it's not hard to see why. After three years in this place, I've witnessed how much influence certain industries still hold, particularly gambling and fossil fuels. Lobbyists from these industries walk into ministers' offices at will. Meanwhile public health experts, environmental scientists and community advocates are left knocking on closed doors or waiting for email responses to secure a meeting.

That's why I've brought this bill to the Senate, again acknowledging that was it introduced into the other place by the member for Kooyong. It is a practical, sensible package of reforms, and it's exactly what this parliament needs. This bill would expand the definition of lobbyist to cover in-house staff, industry associations and consultants engaging with government; legislate a mandatory lobbying code of conduct with real penalties for misconduct; require quarterly online reporting of lobbying activity; require ministerial diaries to be published; ensure oversight by the NACC; and impose a three-year cooling-off period for ministers and senior advisers before they can take lobbying jobs. These reforms are not radical. This is not a radical proposal by any means. Much of this bill is standard practice in other democracies like Canada and the UK, and it's time Australia caught up.

Transparency International has highlighted the urgency of reform. They found that, since 2001, almost every single federal resources minister has taken up a role in the fossil fuel sector after leaving office. They documented multiple former ministers and advisers moving straight into roles promoting gambling. Is it any wonder that meaningful regulation of these industries continues to stall or that reviews like the one that was led by the late Peta Murphy into gambling harm, with 31 recommendations and cross-party support, sit unanswered by the government? Who are they listening to? Who are they in here to represent?

We're told the government is protecting children from social media, but what about protecting them from wall-to-wall gambling ads? We're told there's no money for environmental protection and a limited budget for social housing, yet last term the government passed changes to the petroleum resources rent tax that have seen revenue fall rather than rise. This is unfathomable. The parliament is becoming out of touch with the Australian people on these issues, and I urge the Senate to take action. We can turn this around. We can actually start to implement changes like this and say: 'We're going to be more transparent. We're going to let you see who is meeting with ministers.'

The cost of broken lobbying rules is immense. While countries like Norway are using their natural resources to build an over $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, here in Australia, one of the biggest fossil fuel exporters in the world, we have a budget which is mainly in deficit and a trillion dollars of national debt. That's quite the contrast. Imagine what we could do with all of that lost revenue. We've just had a case where the government, until they were essentially forced to do it, wouldn't release 20,000 home-care packages for older Australians seemingly because of the cost, yet we're happy to give gas away for free and buckle in the face of vested interests, which clearly is not in the interests of Australians now and certainly not in the long-term interests of this country and younger Australians.

Despite all this, I remain hopeful because across the country people are rising up and demanding better—people like Konrad Benjamin. Known to many as Punter's Politics, he has built a following of nearly half a million Australians as he seeks to hold the government to account. He's raised tens of thousands of dollars for billboards calling for fairer tax policy, and now he's fundraising for a people's lobbyist, someone who can represent the punters' interests here in this building day in and day out. I think that's the kind of democratic innovation that we need more of, but it also underscores just how unequal our system has become when you have to do that to actually try and deal with the system.

I want to conclude with a small but important step forward on this issue, one that I hope signals a broader cultural shift in this place. Today I am launching the parliamentary pass register, a public website that brings long overdue transparency to an area of our political system that has operated in the shadows for far too long. As part of this effort, I've written to every senator and every member of the House of Representatives asking them to disclose the names of the individuals they sponsor for building access—the names of the people and the organisations or companies they represent who have access-all-areas passes to this building. I've asked that this information be provided by 1 October, giving the public, for the first time, a clear view of who holds sponsored passes and who granted them. I'm incredibly grateful to the parliamentarians who've already responded. It's a small act, but I think it speaks volumes about a commitment to openness and trust.

I want to especially acknowledge Senator McDonald. We may hold very different views on a range of issues, but she has led by example. For me, this highlights what sponsored passes should be. As a parliamentarian, if you're giving someone a sponsored pass, you should be willing to stand publicly and say, 'Yes, this person has a legitimate reason to access this building.' I'm not ashamed to give someone a sponsored pass, and for that reason I've been disclosing my sponsored passes on my website. It's a check on me, too. Every time someone asks for a sponsored pass, I have to weigh it up and ask: What would the people who I represent think about this? Does this align with people in the ACT? So I thank Senator McDonald. And I thank the members from the other place who've already sent their lists. I encourage and welcome others in this chamber to do the same.

Again, lobbying is an important part of our democracy. I'm not antilobbyists. I just think there should be more transparency over who is accessing this building. By doing that, we will start to rebuild trust in the parliament and in institutions at a time when we desperately need that. If you turn on the TV, you'll see this is the time we need to rebuild trust, not continue to erode it.