Lisa Darmanin (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The government does not support the Lobbying (Improving Government Honesty and Trust) Bill. At the outset, I'd just like to say that the Lobbying Code of Conduct in existence was created by the last Labor government. When the code was established the first time, lobbyists were required to register their activity and comply with strict rules on transparency. It was one of the many integrity measures introduced by the Rudd Labor government of the time, which also included a new code of conduct for ministerial staff. It also strengthened the ministerial code.

When the government tabled the lobbying code at that time, in May 2008, in the other place, the responsible minister, Senator John Faulkner, outlined the purpose of that code. It is instructive reading, and I commend his speech to the chamber. In May 2008, Senator Faulkner said:

The government recognises that lobbying is a legitimate activity and part of the democratic process. Lobbyists can help individuals and organisations communicate their views on matters of public interest to the government and, in doing so, improve outcomes for the individual and community as a whole.

However, there is a legitimate concern that ministers, their staff and officials who are the target of lobbying activities are not always fully informed as to the identity of the people who have engaged a lobbyist to speak on their behalf. The government believes that this information can be fundamental to the integrity of its decisions and should be freely available to those who are lobbied and to the wider public.

For these reasons, the code and associated register aim to ensure government representatives know who is engaged in lobbying and whose interests are being promoted. When a third-party lobbyist contacts a government representative, including a minister, the code requires that they confirm they are on the register and disclose whose interests they are representing. The code also imposes an obligation on government representatives. They must not knowingly be a party to lobbying by a third-party lobbyist who's not on the register. There are penalties associated with the failure to comply with the code, including a power for the Secretary of the Attorney-General's Department to bar a lobbyist who has committed a serious breach.

I acknowledge that some, like Senator Pocock, want registration obligations to extend to in-house lobbyists. There are also some who want to ban lobbying altogether. The government believes that the code strikes the right balance—recognising the right of lobbyists to lobby but placing conditions on the manner of third-party lobbying through mandatory registration and disclosure obligations.

The code prohibits former ministers from lobbying on matters they had official dealings with in their last 18 months in office for a period of 18 months after leaving office. This prohibition is intended to balance the benefits of individuals moving between positions in the public and private sectors against the integrity risks that this may represent. The code promotes trust in the integrity of government processes and ensures that contact between lobbyists and government representatives is conducted in accordance with public expectations of transparency, integrity and honesty, which is what all Australians expect. The code is focused on government representatives as the decision-makers within our democratic system. The code places obligations on third-party lobbyists to increase transparency and allow government representatives to make informed decisions about lobbying activities. The code also sits within a broader integrity and transparency framework, such as the Code of Conduct for Ministers, the Public Service Act 1999, the APS Employment Principles, the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act 2018—which also regulates lobbying activities—and, of course the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

The lobbying code is an administrative instrument. It is an executive action. For that reason it is misconceived to expect the code to require disclosure of sponsored pass access to Parliament House. Parliamentarians are already expected to comply with the rules of access to Parliament House, including in relation to sponsored passes. These rules of access to Parliament House are a matter for the Presiding Officers. Access to official documents of government is available under the Freedom of Information Act by request. These decisions are subject to review by the Information Commissioner and, if necessary, by the Administrative Review Tribunal.

The current freedom-of-information regime is another legacy of the last Labor government. Labor abolished conclusive certificates. Labor created a three-commissioner model—an information commissioner, a productivity commissioner and a freedom-of-information commissioner. The former Liberal government regrettably smashed that model by trying to repeal the legislation and then defunding the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. When Labor returned to office we reinstated the three-commissioner model as the parliament had originally intended. The Albanese Labor government is committed to integrity, honesty and accountability in government.

I recognise Senator David Pocock's advocacy for more transparency in government, and, after nine years of Liberal government, more transparency was desperately needed. The Albanese government is committed to upholding a high standard of integrity, transparency and accountability, as I've said—a standard the former government never aspired to let alone achieved. We have already delivered a significant integrity reform agenda to restore public trust in government and strengthen standards of integrity in the federal public sector. And we have more on the way. Within months of coming to office in 2022 we established the National Anti-Corruption Commission, the single biggest reform to the integrity framework in decades. The commission commenced operations on 1 July 2023, a major reform of the current Labor government. We said we would get this done in the same year we were elected, in 2022, and we did.

We also established the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme. We implemented the Bell inquiry recommendations to improve transparency and accountability and to restore public trust in Australian democracy, after Scott Morrison appointed himself to administer multiple departments without disclosure to his colleagues or the public. We have reformed Australia's system of administrative review with the creation of the Administrative Review Tribunal, a new federal review body that is user focused, efficient, accessible, independent and fair. We have re-established the Administrative Review Council, a recommendation of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, which will be an expert body to monitor and advise on the operation and integrity of the Commonwealth administrative review system. We have strengthened provisions in the Public Service Act 1999 to make it clear that ministers cannot direct agency heads on employment matters. We have established an APS Integrity Taskforce to identify gaps and opportunities to deliver system-wide integrity improvements in the Australian Public Service.

We have also strengthened whistleblower protections through a first tranche of reform to the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013. These reforms implemented 21 of the 33 recommendations of the 2016 independent Review of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 by Mr Philip Moss, and we've commenced work on a second stage of reforms to ensure the Commonwealth public sector whistleblowing framework is fit for purpose. We've reinvigorated Australia's participation in the Open Government Partnership, developing a third national action plan promoting transparency and accountability in government. We have passed new laws to address challenges with detecting investigating and prosecuting foreign bribery in Australia. And we've also passed the Respect@Work legislation—another job left half done by the former government—which now requires businesses across the country to take proactive steps to create workplaces that are safe from the risk of sexual harassment. This is a major step forward for our nation.

All of this speaks to what we have done, but we have much more to do. This week, the Attorney-General introduced important reforms into the parliament to improve the freedom of information system so that anonymous FOI requests are no longer permitted, genuine FOI requests are prioritised and taxpayers' money is saved on frivolous and automated requests. Freedom of information is a vital feature of our democracy. It promotes accountability and transparency of government. It also enables Australians to access their personal information and supports the media in their important role as the fourth estate. But right now, the FOI Act is flawed and not working well for anybody, and our laws need updating.

Despite successive reviews, the FOI framework is stuck in the 1980s—before the use of email and well before the capabilities of AI were contemplated, not all of which is used for public good. In 2024, public servants spent more than a million hours processing FOI requests. Modern technology is making it cheap and easy to create anonymous, vexatious and frivolous requests, tying up masses of resources through abuses of process, unnecessarily costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars of money and delaying the processing of genuine requests. More fundamentally, frivolous requests divert public servants from their core priority of delivery, and we must strike a better balance. The government looks forward to engagement across the parliament on this important reform.

In closing, I want to make some additional comments about Transparency International's annual Corruption Perceptions Index. The Albanese government has reversed Australia's decade-long slide by lifting the country's ranking on Transparency International's annual Corruption PerceptionsIndex, from 18 to 10. This didn't happen by accident. As I said earlier, we established the National Anti-Corruption Commission. We strengthened the ministerial code of conduct. We have strengthened protections for whistleblowers. We have increased funding to the Australian National Audit Office. We have restored transparency to AAT appointments. We have reinstated a standalone privacy and FOI commissioner, and we have implemented the Bell inquiry recommendations.

In conclusion, the Australian people voted for a government that would deliver on integrity. The Albanese government is committed to integrity, honesty and accountability in government. The government does not support this bill.