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Ministerial code of conduct (Read 1693 times)
freediver
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Ministerial code of conduct
Dec 7th, 2007 at 5:33pm
 
Kevin Rudd has set up a new code of conduct for ministers. It covers financial conflicts of interest (eg shareholdings), registration of lobbyists, the independence of the reserve bank etc. Unfortunately, having it reliant upon a political leader leaves it wide open to abuse. Should we instead have an independent (or bipartisan like in the UK) body to monitor this sort of thing?

Some examples from the recent past (I got these in an email from crikey):

Larry Anthony: the former children's affairs minister joined the board of ABC Learning six months after losing his seat.

John Fahey: after claiming he'd privatised more things than anyone else in the world, the former Federal Finance Minister John Fahey signed up with JP Morgan four  months after retiring at the 2001 election.

Peter Reith: the retiring defence minister waited about 48 hours before accepting a lucrative consultancy with Australia's biggest defence contractor Tenix.

Richard Alston: was only six months out of Parliament when he was lobbying for Austereo on digital radio policy.

Michael Wooldridge: redirected $5 million from healthcare programs to help relocate the Royal College of General Practitioners just seven days before the 2001 election. The GPs then used the money to hire Wooldridge as a consultant after the election before then firing him and paying out $382,5000 on an unfair dismissal claim in an exercise that added about $600,000 to his gross wealth.


Lobbyists:

Over 600 lobbyists currently have a pass to Parliament House in Canberra. Since the 1980s lobbying in Australia has grown from a small industry of a few hundred employees to a multi billion dollar a year industry. According to Lobbying in Australia there are more than 1,000 lobbyists in Canberra.

Over $1 billion is spent lobbying the Federal and State governments in what has become an industry in its own right. Of the 150 lobby groups analysed in Lobbying in Australia, they had more than 260 public relations officers, 2431 staff and a budget of over $713 million. This equates to more than $6 million on average for each lobby group. The concept of one or two shady characters trying to manipulate the government in Canberra is false; the lobbying industry has turned totally professional and now resembles some of the unsavoury habits that have occurred in the United States!


Lobbying has become a political fact of life and is now endemic in Australia. It is not just the local councillors, state and federal politicians being lobbied. What was once the preserve of big multi-national companies and at a more local level, property developers, has morphed into an industry that employs more than 10,000 people and represent every facet of human endeavour.
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freediver
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register of lobbyists
Reply #1 - Apr 3rd, 2008 at 3:28pm
 
from crikey:

Why Faulkner's Lobbyist Register won't work

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

Yesterday John Faulkner released the Federal Government’s long-awaited proposal for a Register of Lobbyists, seeking comments by the middle of the month.

While only a code, rather than legislation, the Register would be a significant advance in government transparency. But Faulkner’s proposal will only capture a minority – a small minority – of lobbyists. Like the WA model, only lobbyists representing third parties will be required to register.

In fact, take a look at the WA register – apart from the WA-only people, that’s pretty much who will be on the Commonwealth one, because most major lobbying companies operate nationally.

But the majority of lobbyists, the in-house representatives and government relations managers who push the interests of their own companies, will continue to ply their trade without needing to register. Surely the point of the register is to shed light on who is seeking to influence government, whether or not they are large enough to have their own government relations areas.

This is a major narrowing of the approach set out in the Government’s own Standard of Ministerial Ethics handbook from December, which refers to "individuals and organisations, acting on their own behalf or on behalf of others, whose purpose is to seek to influence (lobby) government on a variety of issues."

The Government argues that third-party lobbyists are the problem – without transparency about whom they represent, there are questions over in whose favour government decision have been influenced.

There’s also the issue that requiring everyone who meets a minister to represent their company’s interests – or even confining it to the full-time lobbyists who work for companies – would make the register truly massive. But it can be done – the Canadians have been doing it for years. Yes, their register, which includes in-house lobbyists, runs to over 35,000 entries, but it provides a comprehensive guide as to who is trying to influence the Canadian Government.

The WA register – admittedly new – currently has just 74 entries.

Besides which, as Coalition spokesman Michael Ronaldson has already pointed out, the distinction between in-house employees and external lobbyists could easily be blurred with a short-term, part-time employment contract.

There are other major gaps. Peak industry bodies aren’t caught. Nor are representatives of non-profit bodies -- trade unions thus won’t be required to register. Nor will religious groups, as Bob Brown noted. "It should cover in-house lobbyists and other third-party organisations which seek to influence government legislation (like the Exclusive Brethren)," Brown told us. "And it should cover all MPs and senators, not just Government representatives."

And one of the biggest gaps of all is the exemption for lawyers and accountants. Only if lobbying forms an undefined "significant" part of their activities will they be required to be registered. The Coalition – who should preface all of their comments with the point that they did nothing about this for eleven years – is already warning of a shift to the American approach where the bulk of lobbying is done by "law firms". And would Graham Morris and Stephen Loosley, who both lobby for PWC clients, be required to register?

We’re not talking about onerous obligations on companies here. One player who will be caught by the register, Government Relations Australia, have said they’re already in the groove of disclosure because of their West Australian activities. "We think this is a good thing," GRA director Rob Harris told Crikey. "This disclosure obligation ought to be welcomed by the industry." GRA even wants it extended across States and Territories to ensure consistency and avoid duplication.

There is one area where the Government has gone much further than anticipated. The ban on ex-Ministers lobbying for 18 months after leaving offices has been extended to ministerial advisers, defence force officers at or above the rank of colonel, or equivalent, and Public Service SES officers, who will all be banned from lobbying for twelve months after ceasing their previous positions. The days of ADF officers and military procurement specialists going straight into the welcoming arms of defence contractors would appear to be over.

The Opposition has called the Faulkner proposal "a reasonable first draft". But it’s not even that. The majority of lobbyists will continue to walk the corridors of power out of sight. So Crikey is starting the Real Register of Lobbyists (see next item) – the top operators who won’t be caught.

Meantime, you can let Senator Faulkner how you think the proposal could be improved by emailing lobbyistsregister@pmc.gov.au.
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