The Greens and prominent crossbenchers will push Labor to toughen regulation of political lobbying, promising to use their balance of power to increase transparency and probity around vested interests with access in Canberra.
Labor’s thumping election win has given the party a historic majority in the House of Representatives. Final results in the Senate and the defection of Western Australian senator Dorinda Cox from the Greens to Labor give the government 29 seats in the upper house, meaning it can pass legislation with the Greens’ 10 votes.
The Greens leader, Larissa Waters, said strengthening the federal lobbyist register and improving rules on access to ministers and government department heads was “a missed opportunity” from the last parliament and would be a priority for her party in negotiations with Labor.
Crossbenchers in both houses, including the Wentworth MP, Allegra Spender, and ACT senator David Pocock, supported the push, urging Labor to toughen the rules on the influence industry.
“There’s very poor regulation of lobbyists and access to politicians by lobbyists and vested interests,” Waters said.
“They still walk the halls essentially with the red carpet rolled out for them. They have an access level that ordinary Australians don’t have, so there’s unfinished business there with the regulation of lobbying, it’s really weak and effectively nonexistent.”
A parliamentary inquiry report released last year showed the register of lobbyists administered by the attorney general’s department captured only a small slice of the paid influence industry operating around federal parliament.
As only paid third-party lobbyists are required to register – and not in-house lobbyists employed by corporations – as much as 80% of the industry is not required to adhere to transparency rules.
The New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption warned the inquiry that unregulated lobbying allows for private interests “to exert undue influence over official decision-making, while diminishing trust in government and increasing the risk of corruption”.
In mid-2024, there were more than 2,050 sponsored passes for access to Parliament House, an unknown share of which were held by paid lobbyists. The report found there was no interaction between the lobbyist register and the pass approval system, despite access being a key tool for the industry.
Spender, the teal independent, said Labor should use its powerful position to clean up the system.
“As a member of parliament you’re elected to represent the people of your community, not special interests with special access,” she said.
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“We need much greater transparency of what lobbyists are doing so the public knows who is meeting MPs and why. We need to know which ministers and shadow ministers are meeting with lobbyists so we can see how they influence public policy.”
Pocock warned unfettered access and transparency gaps around ministerial decision-making are having “a corrosive impact”.
“We need a second-term Albanese government to step into the authority the Australian people have given them to do hard things that put people first,” he said.
“It’s clear the major parties are captured by vested interests, whether it comes to standing up to big tech, pushing back on social harms like gambling or fossil fuel development.”
Pocock pointed to Labor’s failure to crackdown on gambling advertising in the last term as an example of the influence of lobbyists, suggesting the government had listened to powerful sports boss Peter V’landys instead of the late Labor MP Peta Murphy. Murphy led a landmark inquiry into social harms from gambling.
Pocock has draft legislation designed to improve the rules around lobbying and has pledged to push for reform. His bill would require lobbyists to give quarterly updates on their work, including detailing which MPs and senior advisers they have held talks with.
Former ministers and senior officials would be banned from lobbying in their area of experience for three years, up from the current 18 months, and the National Anti-Corruption Commission would have powers to investigate alleged rule breaches.
