Media Release – Lobbying Code Won’t Stop Brian Burke

LOBBYING CODE WON’T STOP BRIAN BURKE

Opposition Senators are recommending changes to the Government’s Lobbying Code of Conduct in a Senate Committee report tabled today.

Senator Mitch Fifield, Deputy Chairman of the Senate Finance & Public Administration Committee, said the Code was fundamentally flawed.

“The Code totally ignores in-house lobbyists employed by unions, industry associations and corporations.

“There is nothing in the Code’s provisions that would prevent disgraced former WA premier Brian Burke from lobbying the ministerial wing of Parliament as an in-house advocate on the payroll of a union or company,” Senator Fifield said.

“The Code also invests the Cabinet Secretary, Senator Faulkner, with arbitrary power to exclude lobbyists from the register with no practical avenue of appeal. This has potentially crippling consequences for lobbying firms, the majority of which are small businesses.”

“This power also poses the serious risk the Code could be used for partisan political purposes rather than the dispassionate regulation of an industry.

The Opposition Senators’ main recommendations are:

– That the Cabinet Secretary’s powers to exclude a lobbyist from the register be devolved to the Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet;

– That a decision to exclude an individual or entity from the register be subject to appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, to ensure that legal recourse is not cost prohibitive;

– That coverage of the Code be expanded to embrace unions, industry associations and other businesses conducting their own lobbying activities.

“There is no widespread crisis of public confidence in the probity of Commonwealth governance or institutions.

“But if the aim of the Code is to prevent the occurrence in the Federal jurisdiction of the episodes witnessed with the likes of disgraced former Western Australian premier Brian Burke and the Wollongong development scandal in New South Wales, then this Code fails that test.

“The Government’s Lobbying Code of Conduct, in unamended form, will fail to achieve its stated purpose and could create a cure worse than the disease.”