Issue
Lobbying is a legitimate act of democratic participation
which can support informed and inclusive decision-making, as described
by the OECD in a 2021 report. However, the OECD also acknowledged that lobbying
may lead to specific interests being favoured over the public interest.
This policy brief outlines proposed international standards for
lobbying regulation, investigates how Australia’s current federal scheme
compares, canvasses developments across other jurisdictions and highlights avenues
of reform.
Key points
- International
standards on lobbying emphasise the need for broad scope, meaningful public
reporting, integrity standards for those involved, independent oversight and
enforceable penalties.
- Domestic
and international lobbying regimes have advanced further than Australia’s
federal scheme and may serve as useful models.
- Reform
proposals focus on improving lobbying regulation’s scope and consistency, with
a key focus on interoperability and harmonisation across jurisdictions.
Context
As Monash University academic Dr
Yee-Fui Ng notes, lobbyists may be hired on a client’s behalf (third-party
lobbyists) but most operate ‘in-house’ on their employer’s behalf (pp. 507,
512). According
to the OECD, lobbying entities include businesses, unions,
non-governmental organisations and think tanks, among others (p. 39).
Direct lobbying can include such entities meeting with government officials,
whereas indirect lobbying may involve mobilising
communities to petition government representatives (p. 86). Examples
of this include grassroots campaigning, where
communities are organised to advocate for an issue, or ‘astroturfing’,
where vested interests manufacture actual or implied community support.
These strategies can vary markedly in their levels of
transparency and the resourcing behind them. Consequently, as Dr
Ng highlights, regulating lobbying can help (p. 509):
- dissuade
corrupt behaviour by government officials
- level
the playing field among lobbyists
- support
merit-based government decision-making.
International standards for lobbying regulation
The OECD
and Transparency
International have developed international standards for lobbying
regulation. These identify key principles and design features which fall into
four themes:
- Scope:
Schemes should capture the range of:
- lobbying
entities
- influence
activities
- public
officials exposed to lobbying.
- Transparency:
Relevant information about lobbying and related activities should be publicly
accessible. This includes:
- its
nature and frequency
- its
intended outcome and impact
- information
about related activities, such as political donations, gifts and benefits.
- Integrity:
Lobbyists and public officials should adhere to standards of conduct, covering:
- fairness,
honesty and (mis)use of information
- conflicts
of interest management
- pre-
and post-employment restrictions.
- Oversight
and enforcement: Schemes should:
- be
legislative rather than administrative
- include
graduated, enforceable penalties
- have
independent oversight.
Australia’s current lobbying scheme
Australia’s federal lobbying scheme comprises a
non-legislated Lobbying
Code of Conduct (the Code) and a publicly accessible Register of Lobbyists (the
Register), both administered by the Attorney-General’s Department (AGD). The
scheme aims to ‘promote trust in the integrity of government processes’ and
ensure that contact between lobbyists and government representatives is
‘conducted in accordance with public expectations of transparency, integrity
and honesty’ (subsection 3(4)). Using the key principles outlined in the
previous section, the Code incorporates the following features:
- Scope:
Governs interactions between third-party (but not in-house)
lobbyists and government representatives, including:
- Ministers,
Assistant Ministers and their staff
- public
servants (paragraphs 5(1)(a)-(d)).
It does not apply to government
backbenchers, non-government parliamentarians or their staff.
- Transparency:
The Code requires lobbyists to provide for the Register:
- identifying
details
- any
previous roles as government representatives
- client
names (section 7).
- Integrity:
Lobbyists must be transparent and honest in their engagement with government representatives
(section 12). Government representatives:
- must
not knowingly and intentionally be party to unregistered lobbyists’ activities
(subsection 6(1))
- must
report Code breaches to the AGD Secretary (subsection 6(2))
- cannot
become lobbyists on matters relating to their former role for a specified
period after leaving public office (section 11).
- Oversight
and enforcement: The AGD Secretary may remove lobbyists from the register
in specified circumstances, including due to Code breaches (paragraph 14(1)(a)).
The Attorney-General has absolute discretion to direct the AGD Secretary to
remove lobbyists from the register (subsection 14(3)).
The Code does not identify sanctions for breaches; however, it operates in
conjunction with the Code of Conduct
for Ministers (subsection 4(1)). This code requires ministers to adhere to
the Lobbying Code (paragraph 6.2), where breaches could lead the Prime Minister
to require the minister to resign, among other actions (paragraphs
8.1–8.6).
The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) published an initial
performance audit of the Register in 2018, and a subsequent
audit on the Code in 2020. In its 2018 audit, the ANAO stated that ‘[t]he
Register does not, on its own, provide transparency into the integrity of the
contact between lobbyists and Government representatives or the matters
discussed’ (p. 29). Civil society organisations (such as the Centre
for Public Integrity and the Human
Rights Law Centre), academics
and media
commentators have also criticised the scheme’s narrow scope and lack of accountability
mechanisms and independent oversight.
Given these issues, some federal
parliamentarians have called for reforms to the scheme. For example, Senator
David Pocock and Dr
Monique Ryan MP have introduced Bills to legislate a federal lobbying
regime. Key elements of the Bills include:
- coverage
across third-party and in-house lobbyists, all parliamentarians and their staff
- enforceable
penalties
- independent
oversight by the National Anti-Corruption Commission.
Another important consideration is lobbyists’ access to
Australian Parliament House (APH). In May 2024 a parliamentary
inquiry noted that lobbyists receiving sponsored passes (which provide
unescorted access to APH private areas) is a privilege unavailable to ordinary
Australians (p. 73). Although the Government has not responded formally to
this inquiry, in March 2026 Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signalled
the opportunity for enhanced measures as part of an upcoming review of the APH
Private Area Access Policy.
Developments in other jurisdictions
Australian jurisdictions
Australian subnational jurisdictions have been increasingly
reforming their lobbying regimes in recent years, with Queensland implementing the
most far-reaching developments. Queensland’s lobbying regime is a legislated
scheme comprising of a Register
and Code,
and has been examined in three independent reviews (published in 2021,
2022
and 2023).
Some of the recommendations and observations from these reports were incorporated
into the 2024 framework, as outlined below:
- Scope:
Although the regime only regulates third-party lobbyists (Integrity
Act 2009 (Qld), section 47), it extends beyond the Executive to senior Opposition
members and certain of their staff (sections 42 and 45).
- Transparency:
The Register details lobbying activity (including the purpose of lobbying
communication) and provides transparency over ministerial diaries. It also
requires lobbyists to record contacts with government.
- Integrity:
Certain former public officials are subject to a two-year cooling off period
(sections 59–62). In 2024, additional integrity measures were legislated,
including:
- prohibiting ‘dual hatting’ (where a person is simultaneously a lobbyist
and political campaigner), to mitigate conflicts of interest and improper
influence risks (section 58).
- requiring former senior government/Opposition representatives who become
lobbyists to report their official dealings in the 2 years before they left
office (paragraph 50(2)(b)). This is to help determine
the matters in which former officials may have ‘insider’ knowledge.
- mandating initial (and then annual) training for prospective lobbyists as
a condition of registration (subsection
53(1)).
- Oversight
and enforcement: The Queensland
Integrity Commissioner provides independent oversight and provides a
penalty for unregistered lobbyists who carry out lobbying activity (paragraph
66O(a)).
Elsewhere, anti-corruption and integrity agencies in New
South Wales, Victoria,
Tasmania and South
Australia have proposed lobbying reforms. Proposals include broadening the definition
of lobbying; extending reporting on registers to include awards nights,
fundraising and networking events; and requiring lobbyists to document contacts
with government representatives.
International jurisdictions – Ireland as case-study
Of the many countries that introduced or reformed lobbying
regulation in the mid-2010s, Ireland’s Regulation
of Lobbying Act 2015 has been reported
as a ‘gold standard’, incorporating the below elements:
- Scope:
Applies to any entity (subsections 5(1)-(2)) that makes ‘relevant
communications’ to a broad array of public officials (subsection 6(1)).
‘Relevant communications’ (subsection 5(4)) are defined broadly to include informal
conversations, social
media posts and grassroots
lobbying.
- Transparency:
The Register
of Lobbying captures a wide range of information on lobbying activities, including
the date it occurred, public officials targeted, the lobbyist’s details, the
matter discussed and the intended results.
- Integrity:
For one year after leaving office, certain designated public officials cannot
lobby on matters with which they were involved in the previous year. This
includes a ban on working or providing services to anyone engaged in lobbying
on those matters (section 22).
- Oversight
and enforcement: The independent Standards
in Public Office Commission investigates breaches of the Act (subsection 19(1)). In
2023 the Act was further amended
to close off loopholes and improve its enforceability. This included introducing
sanctions for breaching the cooling off provision (new section 22A), and a
graduated sanctions scheme to reflect the severity of contraventions (new
subsection 22A(13)).
Future directions
Lobbying is increasingly ‘sophisticated,
complex and well-funded’, presenting difficulties for developing
fit-for-purpose regulation (p.73). Compounding this are emerging
issues including foreign influence risks and cumbersome administrative
burdens (p. 86).
Australia has sought to address foreign influence risks with
the legislated Foreign
Influence Transparency Scheme (FITS). This requires those undertaking
prescribed ‘influence activities’ on behalf of foreign entities to sign up to a
public register. However, a 2024
parliamentary committee review found the FITS has ‘significant flaws’, with
a ‘very low number of registrations and minimal compliance and enforcement activity’
(p. 75). owev
The Review also noted that individuals and organisations may need to separately
register with the FITS and the federal lobbying scheme, potentially creating administrative
and regulatory burden (p. 12). Increasing interoperability
between regulatory mechanisms (p. 77) is one proposed way to overcome this
burden. For example, the 2024 APH access inquiry recommended aligning
the Lobbying Register and the APH passholder database (p. 54).
Among the states, the New South Wales Independent Commission
Against Corruption has recommended
that lobbyists be allowed to provide or use documents filed with other
jurisdictions (p. 61), while the Victorian
and South
Australian anti-corruption commissions have called for harmonisation of
lobbying regulation. However, such harmonisation could pose challenges,
particularly from a constitutional
perspective (p. 5).
Conclusion
Ultimately, regulating lobbying is about fairness; it aims
to ensure that no single interest has an outsized influence over government
decisions. While earlier approaches predominantly focused on increasing
visibility over lobbying activities, transparency is only one of several levers
available. More established lobbying frameworks, such as those in Queensland
and Ireland, have sought to raise integrity standards across the lobbying
sector and provide proportionate consequences for non-compliance. As lobbying
practices continue to evolve and broaden, regulatory measures will need to be more
responsive.