Lobbyists are fighting back against calls to restrain their representations. 

The Centre for Public Integrity (CPI) is pushing for the Australian federal lobbyists’ code and register to be legislated, and for a new stand-alone regulator to be given powers to fine, remove parliamentary access passes, or imprison lobbyists for serious breaches. 

THe call is made in CPI’s recent report, ‘Closing the revolving door’. 

The Australian Professional Government Relations Association (APGRA), which represents lobbyists, has pushed back against these recommendations, accusing the CPI of being out of touch with contemporary lobbying practices and not understanding how government works.

The CPI wants the current federal lobbying code to be strengthened and expanded to include in-house corporate and union lobbyists. 

It also recommended extending the period that retiring officials and ministers are prohibited from lobbying from two years to five. 

It also suggests there should be proactive publication of ministerial diaries in order to help understand what is being lobbied for, which is already the case in NSW and Queensland.

The report identified a “nexus of corporate influence and quid pro quo between monied interests and elected representatives” and stated that Australia has one of the weakest lobbying regimes in the country. 

The report also called for independent statutory regulation, which would bring Australia into line with the United Kingdom and Canada.

Anthony Whealy, chairman of the CPI, argues that legislating lobbying protections and creating an independent statutory regulator would enable sanctions for breaches and provide a better deterrent effect. 

Independent senator David Pocock has also called for tighter controls over the distribution of passes to lobbyists, including revealing who has free access to MPs’ offices.

While the APGRA agreed to meet with the CPI, it pushed back on any legislative reforms. 

Association president and GRACosway partner Andrew Cox stated that “strengthening compliance within the existing regimes would be a better and more efficient outcome than further enshrining any measures into legislation.”

In addition to lobbying on behalf of entities that donated significantly to their parties and campaigns while in office, the report highlighted five examples where ministers, shadow ministers, and ministerial advisers had begun lobbying within a year of leaving their political jobs, including two former defence ministers, former Liberal MP Christopher Pyne, and former Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon.

The lobbyist register is administered by the Attorney-General’s Department and requires anyone who lobbies Australian government representatives on behalf of third-party clients to be registered and to comply with the requirements of the code. 

Ministers and officials are not allowed to meet with unregistered lobbyists.

While a spokesperson for Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus noted that the previous Labor government had strengthened the lobbyist code of conduct, the CPI criticised both sides for being slow to implement reforms on integrity.