The fossil fuel industry should be treated like the tobacco industry in any overhaul of the federal parliament’s lobbying rules, the Greens say after a report found “loopholes” in the current system failed to address most influence peddling.
Citing the paper by the Centre for Public Integrity, an independent research institute focussed on transparency in government, Greens Senator Steph Hodgins-May says corporate and industry lobbyists outmatch NGOs and the public with access to decision makers, and this is contributing to eroding public trust in democracy.
“I’ve only been in parliament for a year now, it’s the same under-resourced, community advocates that knock on the doors of the Greens and the Independents,” she said.
“So often they are knocking on the doors of people who don’t need convincing because they can’t get meetings with the people they need to convince, because they can’t get access.
“We want to clean up politics and level the playing field – put people, our environment and our planet before polluters.”
The paper found multiple issues, including the continued use of “success fees” – cash bonuses that reward lobbyists for having achieved a result – at the federal level even though they are banned in many states and territories.
These cash bonuses are considered to encourage unethical behaviour and have been banned in most jurisdictions except the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory and federally.
Another issue was the stream of former cabinet ministers, MPs and or staffers taking jobs in industry after their time in government, with the report finding two in five registered lobbyists federally were once associated with a political party.
However, the definition of a “lobbyist” was so narrow under current rules it did not cover the bulk of lobbying that was often unpaid and which takes place through informal relationships. For example, these may include membership of the same sports team, or personal friendships between individuals.
“The vast majority of lobbyists are not captured by the federal lobbying register,” the paper said.
“Current rules only require third-party lobbyists (consultants retained to lobby on behalf of clients) to be registered, excluding those in-house corporate lobbyists who engage in the majority of lobbying. As a result, details of such lobbying are not disclosed to the public.”
Dr Catherine Williams, the Centre’s executive director, said the paper outlined “gold standard” reforms needed to curb how influence is used to shape decision making in favour of “vested interests.”
“In our view a lobbyist is a person who is seeking to influence, to put it broadly, the use of public power,” Dr Williams said. “We are concerned, equally, about the outsized impact of vested interests and the insufficient space currently provided for other voices to be properly represented in the policy process.”
The Centre proposed a series of reforms including the publishing of regular, monthly disclosures of all interactions between lobbyists and political staffers, independent regulation and broader definition of lobbying.
Australian climate policy was one area where the consequences of industry lobbying were clearly visible, Dr Williams said.
She says the “policy failures” on climate over the last three decades “are explained in significant part by the ability of the fossil fuel industry to access the political process in a way that the average Australia is precluded from doing.”
“This has been achieved, in our view again, via the making of political donations and other kinds of payments to political parties. And access in the form of lobbying by entities themselves, and by their peak bodies.”
In one example, Senator Hodgins-May says she was aware of a government roundtable on environmental issues where civil society groups were outnumbered by industry representatives, including those from fossil fuel producers.
She says this raises critical questions about how Australia’s climate and environment laws are being written.
“When we see what happened in the last term of parliament when we were trying to strengthen our national environment laws and we see at the eleventh-hour a phone call come in from the WA Premier, it’s so telling of the influence these fossil fuel corporations have,” she says.
“We need to toxify the fossil fuel industry to the level it deserves. Similar to what we did with the tobacco industry. It needs to be toxic for MPs to sit down with gas and coal industry representatives.”
