Queensland LNP-linked firm exploiting lobbying loophole

One of Queensland’s biggest LNP-linked lobby firms is exploiting a loophole in the state’s laws to avoid declaring paid clients and potential lobbyists by meeting with frontbenchers.

SAS Group co-owners Larry Anthony and Malcolm Cole. Picture: Jerad Williams

One of Queensland’s biggest LNP-linked lobby firms is exploiting a loophole in the state’s laws to avoid declaring paid clients and even potential lobbyists, by meeting with Opposition Leader David Crisafulli’s frontbenchers.

The Weekend Australian can reveal SAS Group – co-owned by former Nationals president and MP Larry Anthony and repeat LNP candidate Malcolm Cole – has failed to declare resources giant APLNG as a client and Mr Cole as a lobbyist despite holding meetings with opposition Treasury spokesman David Janetzki and energy spokeswoman Deb Frecklington.

And the firm only began to declare non-profit organisations as lobbying clients last month despite other lobbyists routinely disclosing interactions on behalf of not-for-profits, and the former Integrity Commissioner publicly stating they had to.

SAS Group insists this decision was based on legal advice.

Under Queensland’s otherwise strict lobbying laws, meetings between lobbyists and frontbenchers – apart from leader Mr Crisafulli and deputy leader Jarrod Bleijie – do not need to be declared, unless there are opposition staff present.

SAS Group’s Peter Costantini.

In one example, cited in Ms Frecklington’s diaries, she declares a “meeting-lobbyist” with SAS Group’s Peter Costantini, Australia Pacific LNG’s then-chief executive officer Khoa Dao and senior manager Nicole Buchanski, along with opposition staff, to discuss a “portfolio matter” and have a “meeting of introduction”.

SAS Group has not included the meeting on its register of lobbying contacts, nor have they included APLNG as a client.

Mr Cole said Mr Costantini did not know the staffer would be present and if he did, would not have attended. He also said that it was an introduction, and didn’t meet the definition of lobbying.

Mr Cole told The Australian that he took the Queensland Resources Council – which is running an expensive and high-profile campaign against the Labor government’s coal royalties hikes – to meet with Mr Janetzki at parliament in April, but it did not need to be disclosed, because the politician was a frontbencher. He also said he did not need to be a registered lobbyist for the same reason.

The firm did not disclose three meetings in March between lobbyists, their clients, and Mr Crisafulli or his chief of staff Richard Ferrett, insisting it was not legally necessary because they were not-for-profits.

LNP leader David Crisafulli. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Those engagements included Mr Costantini hosting a tour for Mr Crisafulli, Youth Justice spokeswoman Laura Gerber, and manager of opposition business Andrew Powell of the BUSY Group’s school to discuss a disengaged students’ program. While Mr Crisafulli and Ms Gerber declared it as a “meeting – lobbyist,” it wasn’t on the lobbyist register.

Published advice from the Integrity Commissioner in 2021 told lobbyists that representing not-for-profits as third-party clients did not exempt them from integrity laws; an interpretation SAS Group disputes.

In Mr Ferrett’s published diaries, he declares a meeting with Mr Cole to discuss the Queensland Cricketers’ Club’s plans on January 27, along with the QCC’s Troy Collings and Lachlan Furnell.

Mr Cole said it was not a meeting, but a ticket to the second test between Australia and the West Indies at the Gabba and no lobbying took place.

GovStrat owner Damian Power and former LNP spinner Geraldine Mitchell did not declare a meeting with Ms Frecklington and opposition staff for clients Batchfire Resources, in an apparent breach of the rules.

Also in March, using the frontbencher loophole, lobbyist and former Howard government minister Santo Santoro met with health spokeswoman Ros Bates and his aged care clients Mackenzie, and former Newman government minister turned lobbyist Scott Emerson took CPB Contractors – the company building the government’s Cross River Rail project and locked in an industrial dispute with the CFMEU – to meet transport spokesman Steve Minnikin.

Neither of those meetings had to be declared on the lobbyist register.