‘Fatally flawed’: Crossbench anger after Senate report stops short of lobbying reform

A Senate inquiry has rebuffed calls for stricter controls on hundreds of lobbyists who gain access to Parliament House to influence politicians, sparking a new dispute about whether to force them to reveal all their meetings with ministers.

The inquiry admitted the need to consider sweeping changes to the lobbying regime, saying a further inquiry could explore the options, but it did not embrace major proposals for reform after months of submissions from experts.

Independent ACT senator David Pocock has led the push for tougher rules for lobbyists.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The findings, published in a Senate committee report on Tuesday afternoon, provoked sharp criticism from senators who wanted immediate action to expand the regime to include in-house government relations executives as well as independent lobbying firms.

“Lobbying has the potential to improve legislation and policy outcomes and strengthen democratic participation by bridging the divide between the public and decision-makers,” said the final report from the inquiry, chaired by Liberal senator Richard Colbeck.

“However, lobbying also has the potential to be a corrosive force on democracy when private interests usurp the public interest.”

The report recommended a further inquiry, greater co-operation between agencies to supervise the federal register of lobbyists, and a move to allow “day passes” for people who visited Parliament House on business.

Labor senators Louise Pratt and Jana Stewart made additional comments to back the idea of “day passes” – a key issue for people who may not have official passes as lobbyists but need to speak to ministers and other members of parliament.

With the federal government spending billions of dollars on assistance for big companies, advocates for reform want the regime to disclose who the lobbyists are, who they work for and who they are meeting in Parliament House.

This masthead revealed last year that the number of sponsored bright orange passes to Parliament House, which includes those granted to lobbyists, reached 1791 at the beginning of last year and that 891 had been issued since the previous election.

Lobbyists are required to list themselves on a federal register managed by the Attorney-General’s Department, but this does not include in-house government relations staff such as executives who work for big companies or industry associations.

Canberra lobbyist Simon Banks, who is managing director of Hawker Britton and was previously a senior adviser to several Labor leaders, said in a submission to the inquiry that the regime should include corporate lobbyists as well as third-party firms.

Another lobbyist, Jannette Cotterell of Executive Counsel Australia, also lodged a submission saying the rules should be extended to in-house government relations staff.

The report said the register listed 691 individual lobbyists, 331 lobbying organisations, 2285 clients and 186 deregistered lobbying organisations on April 3.

In its submission to the inquiry, the Attorney General’s Department said the number of reported breaches of the lobbying regime had increased from two in 2021 to 16 in 2023. It did not say whether any sanctions had been applied to those who breached the rules.

Independent senator David Pocock, who started the inquiry with a motion in the Senate last December, said he was disappointed with the report because it failed to make the case for change.

“The enormous weight of evidence tendered to this inquiry – including from current lobbyists – revealed the system as it currently stands is fatally flawed,” Pocock said.

“We’ve got a code with such a narrow definition of lobbying that 80 per cent of lobbyists aren’t even captured by it and in the unlikely event someone is found to breach it, the penalty is so light as to offer no deterrent at all.”

Pocock called for the lobbying regime to be expanded to cover all interactions between lobbyists and all parliamentarians, not just ministers, and for strong penalties to discourage breaches of the rules.

Pocock also called for the monthly publication of ministerial diaries, the release of the list of sponsored pass holders who entered Parliament House as lobbyists, and the creation of a Whistleblower Protection Authority to protect people who revealed misconduct.

Independent MP Monique Ryan, the member for Kooyong in Melbourne, noted that the committee found that lobbying rules “have not maintained pace” with changes in lobbying and parliament.

“The report does not go far enough, but it reflects a very welcome increase in support for lobbying reform in this parliament,” she said.

Centre for Public Integrity executive director Catherine Williams said the report was a missed opportunity but she backed the proposal for an independent review and called on the government to adopt this recommendation as soon as possible.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.