Palaszczuk won’t ban lobbyists despite damning report

Qld premier says business doesn’t need lobbyists to meet government, but won’t stop dealing with those who ran her campaign.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: NewsWire / Sarah Marshall

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will not immediately stop her government from dealing with the lobbyists who ran her re-election campaign, despite the Coaldrake probe warning the “suspicious” practice should cease.

Professor Peter Coaldrake’s blistering review of Queensland public sector culture recommends a ban on election campaigners acting as lobbyists in the next term of government.

But Ms Palaszczuk refused to say whether she would order her ministers stop meeting with the firms of Labor lobbyists Evan Moorhead and Cameron Milner, who ran strategy for her successful 2020 re-election campaign from the Premier’s riverfront city office.

Both former ALP state secretaries, the pair have become Queensland’s most popular lobbyists, securing almost daily access to minister’s offices and favourable treatment for their clients.

The Premier said her Cabinet on Monday would consider whether Mr Milner and Mr Moorhead be allowed to continue doing business with the Queensland government, but argued Professor Coaldrake’s recommendation was for a “prospective” government.

“Let me say it very clearly to every single member of the business community out there: you do not need to employ a lobbyist to have a meeting with my government,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

Lions share of meetings

However, analysis of the state’s lobbyist register reveals that in May alone, 12 lobbying firms representing 38 businesses held 74 meetings with the Queensland government, including eight meetings with senior officials in Ms Palaszczuk’s office.

Mr Moorhead’s Anacta Strategies secured the lion’s share of meetings: 18. The firm has already ruled out working on Labor’s 2024 state campaign.

“We’ve always followed the regulations that govern the work we do, when those rules change we will continue to abide by them,” an Anacta spokesman said.

Professor Coaldrake also disagreed with Ms Palaszczuk’s assessment, finding there was a “market failure” by government to be able to deal with business and community interests “without the involvement of a paid intermediary”.

Anacta sets up in Canberra

Immediately after Anthony Albanese’s federal election win on May 21, Anacta set up shop in Canberra, registering as a lobbying firm with four individual lobbyists, including Mr Moorhead.

Campaign veteran David Nelson, who co-founded ­Anacta with Mr Moorhead, was head of Labor’s advertising buys during the May federal campaign and was involved in strategy.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles’s former chief of staff Lidija Ivanovski this month left his office to join Anacta in Canberra as a director of the firm, telling social media followers she was thrilled to join the “very clever, talented and decent team”.

Anacta already has seven federal clients, including big miner Glencore Australia, Southern Oil Refining, renewables company Bowen River Utilities, Griffith University, infrastructure investment business Plenary Group, and global beverage giant Lion Nathan.

Professor Coaldrake’s report, which follows a long-running ­investigation by The Australian into the growing power of lobbyists in Queensland, notes that the rise of Labor lobbyists with an understanding of the political system had helped corporate clients secure outcomes “that might not otherwise have been possible”.

“The appearance of guiding a political party to office one week and then advocating a client’s case for a government or council decision a few weeks later naturally raises suspicion which cannot be remedied by promises to impose ‘Chinese walls,’” he found.

“Suspicions about ‘dual hats’ may be heightened if subsequent government decisions favour clients of the firms engaged to run election campaigns.”

Anacta’s Queensland clients, including Glencore and Downer, were the beneficiaries of major campaign funding announcements.

The Crime and Corruption Commission is also expanding its probe into lobbyists, last month declaring corruption risks had “intensified” since the last state election campaign and confirming a small group of lobbyists was being given a “disproportionate amount of ­access” to decision-makers.