
If you look closely enough wandering around Australian Parliament House, you will see men — and it’s mostly men — in suits and orange lanyards mingling in the courtyards and drinking coffee around cafe tables.
The orange lanyards signify that they are lobbyists — third-party lobbyists with free access to the private areas of Parliament House. A few of them are more like consultants — they don’t do much lobbying themselves, but advise lobbyists and clients on how to lobby more effectively. Their names are on the official Lobbyists Register, these days maintained by the Attorney-General’s Department. There are currently 586 people in over 260 firms on the register.
The reality of modern policymaking is that those affected by policy — stakeholders, in bureaucratic parlance — devote considerable resources to influencing it, trying to get the ear of politicians and bureaucrats to shape legislation and regulations to better serve their interests. And the more tightly they are regulated, the more they will seek to shape that regulation. They may be big corporations, industry peak bodies, unions, charities, or NGOs. Lobbyists are the primary mechanism to do that. As the Australian Professional Government Relations Association points out: anyone can have a meeting with a politician, but some use experts and that’s where lobbyists step in. They understand that they’re representing vested interests. “Mother Theresa didn’t need her own lobbyist, her work spoke for itself,” one lobbyist quipped.
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What a filthy pox this is, underhand and deliberately contrived to appear rather detached and fair. If lobbying is to be fair, let it be observed as is question time, full names, topics, interests, backgrounds, desires exposed. Decent social organisations cannot get a fair go.
Who listens to sky news apart from lobbyists and politicians?
My thoughts exactly.
They should be taken out the back & shot in the back of the head along with a lot of the Politicians they pay off
Lobbying, by definition, is anti-Democratic. It is all about privileged access, and consequently non-privileged lack of access. It rates opinions according to networks and connections rather than quality of argument and is a hairs breadth from spin doctoring at best.
Lobbyists and political donations should be outlawed, or at least publicised in real time or within 24 hours if Ministers must keep their diaries close to their chest.
Lollies are supposed to be representatives of the people, not paid shills for companies and pressure groups.
At the very heart of democracy’s cancer lie lobbyists. Doesn’t matter really how ethical they are personally.
Dog’s, what’s truly anti-democratic is most voters’ wilful, lazy ignorance and petulant apathy. We live in an age where it’s never been so easy to be politically informed and policy-engaged. Every single speech and debate in Parly, every single piece of legislation, every deep dive detailed committee report, every public consultation and submission…all available at the click of a mouse, usually with beautifully concise Exec Summaries and step by step user-friendly interfaces. We have infinite hotlines, info sites, public road shows, battalions of patient first rate public servants…
And most punters don’t give a fuck. Won’t even google ‘what’s a death tax?’…etc.
Sorry but I have no time any more for ‘our democracy is stuffed’ whingeing. ‘Our democracy’ is just…us.
Lobbyists are actually at least politically engaged and informed. Not like the 24,800,000 odd other pissant Australians who are more interested in whining about their exclusion from it.
A perfect description – “petulant apathy” – of the reason we are in this current morass.
The vast majority of people don’t know what they want and whinge & whine until it is given to them because then they’ll be able to complain that it is the wrong size/colour/style.
How very reassuring – “…I won’t go do something I don’t believe in…“.
What they believe in may be deleterious to the Common Weal, else some pollie would have opted to do it, without being bribed, cajoled or baffled with B/S.
Unless one realises that what they believe in is making bigbuck$.