It is time Parliaments joined Governments to ensure all professional lobbyists are registered. All lobbyists should be required to adhere to a code of conduct. And interest groups and think tanks should be required to disclose who their members and donors are.

Show us the money. Photo: NSW Police Media

Recent developments in the debate about plain packaging of tobacco and carbon pricing have in turn kicked off a debate about the role of lobbyists, interest groups and think tanks. In particular, who influences the influencers?

Political parties have for many years been required to disclose significant donors. The current debate is about the threshold at which donations should be disclosed.

Some jurisdictions, like New South Wales, have introduced stricter disclosure laws for industries where concern about inappropriate conduct been persistent, such as property development. Importantly, both the recipient political party and the person making the donation are required to make a disclosure.

In more recent years, Registers of Lobbyists have required third party lobbying firms - including companies like Hawker Britton - to disclose who our clients are.  This ensures that when we speak to Government, Government knows who we are speaking on behalf of. Hawker Britton has consistently supported these reforms. These reforms should be extended to others who regularly speak to government about their clients’ interests, such as lawyers, accountants and town planners.

Lobbyists are also required to adhere to a code of conduct, with the implicit understanding that anyone in breach of the code runs the risk of being denied registration and thus the ability to lobby Ministers, their staff and public servants. However, key decisions on issues like tobacco and carbon pricing are also made by our Parliaments – not just Governments – by Oppositions, minor parties and independents.

It is time Parliaments also adopted Registers of Lobbyists to ensure the same standards that apply to the Executive also apply to the Legislature.

And the code of conduct should be extended to all lobbyists – not just third party lobbyists. Inappropriate conduct by a person lobbying government is inappropriate regardless of whether you are an employee or an agent of a company or interest group.

Focus is also rightly turning to the various industry associations, interest groups and think tanks. Most industry association are proud to declare who their members are and the interests they represent.  It is an essential part of their marketing and informs government about their ability to bring together a range of interests for the benefit of policy development. Bodies like the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group and the Minerals Council of Australia are happy to do this.

But bodies have also been established that seek to hide from government, the media and the public who or what these organisations really are.  It is one thing for tobacco companies to argue their case themselves or through an identifiable industry association; it is another to pass off an interest group as representing small retailers if big tobacco is really funding it.

Concern is also growing about the role of think tanks and whether they are “independent” or not. These concerns have been expressed about think tanks occupying the political spectrum, from GetUp! and the Climate Institute to the Centre for Independent Studies and the H.R Nicholls Society.

Most think tanks claim to represent an intellectual or philosophical perspective and thus assert their opinions cannot be bought. We all hope that is true. But even if you accept that that the views expressed by these think tanks are genuine, their focus, size, research capabilities and influence in the public debate are all inevitably linked to how much money they have.

The most obvious and recent example, is the persistent failure of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) to disclose whether it is funded by tobacco companies, despite repeated public comments on the merits of plain packaging.

The reasons given by the IPA is that donors have been threatened in the past and that Australia, unlike the US does not have the ‘maturity’ of political culture for the public to know. The same arguments would deny Australians the right to know who makes donations to political parties. Threats should be exposed and dealt with using the full force of the law, not lead to a culture of secrecy. No-one could seriously argue that the big tobacco companies would be afraid of such threats. And to claim that Australia’s political culture is not as developed as the US, it both insulting and wrong.

Governments and Parliaments have an obligation to ensure that those who seek to influence political outcomes are required to say who they are. As decision-makers or as citizens we can then judge the weight to give those opinions. Governments, Parliaments and journalists all have the means to do so.

Quite simply, they can refuse to receive submissions or publish comments or opinions from industry associations, interest groups and think tanks that refuse to make appropriate disclosure. At the very least, they could indicate that the organisation has not adequately disclosed its funding. Put simply, it is hard to influence when no-one is willing to listen.

23 comments

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    • Erick says:

      05:44am | 09/06/11

      Interesting article.

      Should journalists be required to disclose the nature of their personal relationships with politicians also?

    • acotrel says:

      07:13am | 09/06/11

      I’m a bit confused.  Is there a relationship between the Institute of Public Affairs, and the H.R.Nicholls Society?

    • have a nice day says:

      08:23am | 09/06/11

      @ acotrel “I’m a bit confused.”

      A BIT confused!!

      Acca I’ve been reading your stuff for a while now. To say you’re a bit confused is putting it mildly.

    • JIM says:

      08:09am | 09/06/11

      the other missing part of the equation are organisations that are not lobbyists, but that employee people who behave like lobbyists.  For example most construction companies these days employ or have on their board ex Minister’s and ex-advisors.  They “assist” Mininsters and government in developing policy and often it helps their industry. 

      They too need to be regulated.  Or perhaps the better way would be to look at a system whereby the Auditor-General has significantly more powers to investigate the work done by public servants.  The reasons that lobbyists can operate successfully is that a Senior public servant can brief a Minister that a policy position is good and never have to publically justify why that advice was given. 

      In third world countries we call the proliferation of lobbyists, corruption.  Maybe the answer is to remind the public servants of their legal and ethical obligations to provide Ministers with full and frank advice.  If they did that then lobbyists influence would be greatly reduced and we would have a government looking out for all Australians instead of just the ones that can afford to emploly lobbyists.

    • Pete says:

      08:42am | 09/06/11

      When you say it is a public servant’s duty to provide frank and fearless advice, that is becoming increasingly difficult with the proliferation of “staffers” and their influence on ministers, which seems to create some sort of buffer between the minister and public servants( remember Rudd’s minders) as well as government initiated changes in the last ten or so years in employment conditions for senior public servants tend to discourage being frank and fearless The whole thing appears to have made the public sector politicised

    • Bev says:

      10:40am | 09/06/11

      Very true back when policy development and neutral advice which put all the options on the table was derigor and the public service strongly defended its neutrality.  Public servants were paid less than their counterparts in private industry but they had tenure and could not be sacked on the whim of the government of the day. This meant they could give politicians advice they might not be happy with without risking their future.  Whilam started the rot and it has proceeded apace. Since then and all governments since then have more and more politicised the public service. Minders are the latest wave of this. process.

    • scumbag says:

      07:52pm | 09/06/11

      @ Bev, interesting, of course times change, I’m wondering though, to bring back the point of this article, the self interest of the author,  vis-a-vie the policy interest of the Hawker-Britton group, apparently via Mr Banks, a director, who points out his position with candour. Consequently one must ask, why is this article even a topic, and one should also ask, by his own verbosity, why this is so. Interested commentators here might take note of the documentary ‘Casino Jack and the US of Money’. It’s revealing, and results in the jailing of Jack Abrahamoff and his cronies, in 2006. If the author’s statement, “The reasons given by the IPA is that donors have been threatened in the past and that Australia, unlike the US does not have the ‘maturity’ of political culture for the public to know….”  is correct, then the arrogance is evident. One must ask, should there be unidentified lobbyists/interest groups and various affiliated lunatic fringe groups be able by government ineptitude, gain a position of power and wealth, in order to deliver an outcome for government ministers, parliamentarians, at a price, unidentified by available means. It’s not a position for Registrars of Lobbyists to determine by self-regulation,  it’s a matter for federal governments to legislate.

    • pk says:

      09:07am | 09/06/11

      The IPA should come clean about their links to Big Tobacco. It is morally inconsistent for them to champion open and transparent markets, but deny basic information about how they are funded so that the political debate can be open and transparent.

    • michael j says:

      09:16am | 09/06/11

      IN Queensland we are making great inroads into this lobbyist problem with
      everyone from ex-  politicians to street cleaners being banned from talking to their mates for two years or getting two years jail,,sorry that is BIKIES im
      thinking of,but i do recall Premier Bligh was addressing the problem,,indeed the large box of cash in the picture above that i need really badly ATM would easily corrupt me if i knew any type of secret at all,, Actually it reminds me of Kevin Nuttals stash that he got for doing nothing ,,poor bugger 45 mins of parliaments time to save himself from more slot time ,and the best he comes up with is the blokes behind Watergate did not get as much jail time as himself,,the Courier mail described him next morning as deluded ,,
      K Rudds brother is the head of the biggest lobby company in the ACT ?
      have to be more money flowing through there than threw the federal mint,,,

    • PetefromHay says:

      10:22am | 09/06/11

      Liberal and Labor Parties need to come clean with the people in the Murray Darling Basin that they are acting mainly on behalf of the swinging voters of Adelaide that they are trying to woo by creating a mini Switzerland an hours drive from it. Shame it’s capital city with the lowest annual rainfall in Australia.

    • Drag0nista says:

      11:20am | 09/06/11

      While we’re demanding transparency from think tanks, let’s not forget the “independent” think tanks with current politicians’ staffers on their boards and ex pollies working on their staff (ie. the Australia Institute).

    • Simon Banks says:

      11:37am | 09/06/11

      Dragonista is correct to point out that transparency should apply across the political spectrum, then we as citizens can decide whether we agree or not with the views being promoted.

    • PetefromHay says:

      11:41am | 09/06/11

      With Live Export being a hot issue, interesting live export Cattle traders “Elders Ltd” is a Corporate Partner of “World Wildlife Fund Australia” through it’s Forestry division http://www.wwf.org.au/ourwork/business/

    • Simon Banks says:

      11:41am | 09/06/11

      For those who haven’t read them, Dragonista has also commented regularly on this issue in her blog: http://dragonistasblog.com/ Well worth the read.

    • ausspud says:

      02:22pm | 09/06/11

      i notice you forgot to put hawker britton as a political lobyist group.funny that

    • Simon Banks says:

      02:50pm | 09/06/11

      ausspud: To the contrary, I specifically stated in para 5 that:

      “In recent years, Registers of Lobbyists have required third party lobbying firms - including companies like Hawker Britton - to disclose who our clients are. ”

    • iansand says:

      02:28pm | 09/06/11

      Or politicians could be required to disclose who has been in their ear and who those people represent.  The lists would be boring as batshit, but some cadet journalist could be required to trawl through them to get a story.

    • TheRealDave says:

      03:08pm | 09/06/11

      Like other cancers on society I think EVERY single advertorial put out by interest groups to the public should have disclaimers like political ads.

      So when I see the bollocks about Plain Packaging on smokes only helps terrorists who want to behead your children and rape your cat or some crap, I want to see a ‘Spoken by J Bloggs, Written by An Advertising Exec at Bloggs Advertising working directly for or on behalf of the Phillip Morris Corporation who are a major ciggarette manufacturer around the world” and not some crap about a ficticious ‘Alliance of Retailers’ they try and peddle nowadays.

      And prosecute ANY bastard that tries to hide who is behind the organisation and funding of such ficticious groups…..start at $1million for the first offense and double it everytime they get caught.

    • Oranges says:

      05:17pm | 10/06/11

      And what about big pharma pushing THEIR nicotine, “on behalf of Johnson & Johnson Corp who are a major nicotine replacement manufacturer around the world”. Don’t be blinded by bias. They are ALL as bad as each other these days. No integrity at all.

    • Gerard says:

      07:01pm | 09/06/11

      Yes, of course, the answer, as always, is more regulation. More restrictions on what people are allowed to do. In fact, why not just make it illegal for ANYONE to ask their local member to do something?

      The fact is that regulation in this area is absolutely unnecessary. The public should be removing governments from power when they do the wrong thing, irrespective of whether those govenments have broken the law or not. Lobbying laws are just a cop out to allow the general public to continue to ignore what their ‘representatives’ are doing.

    • stephen says:

      08:01pm | 09/06/11

      Lobbyists are like those kids rides in shopping malls : they only stop when they run out of money.
      They lobby hard, and their only provizo is to ignore the greater good, by assuming that if everybody is the same, (in lobbying) then the greater good is achieved.
      (I actually heard that from a lobbyist after I had questioned, not their motives, but whether as a ‘gun’ for hire, they might ridicule, by misleading endeavers, their own integrity).
      The role of Government, possibly, then, may include a propensity to discern fact from fiction in the art of legislation and its precursor : the bullshit lobby.

    • Oranges says:

      04:59pm | 10/06/11

      Now don’t forget those in the pay of Big Pharma also, not just Big Tobacco. BigPharma being drug pushers and all.

 

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