An Aussie Editorial on Insider Lobbyists

Worth reading is an op-ed piece Saturday in the Canberra Times by Jack Waterford, the paper's editor-at-large. With a title you'd never see in an American paper — Weaning Players Off the Public Teat — Waterford takes a very frank approach to the revolving door between government and lobbying.

Waterford starts off by acknowledging that, "For too many politicians, minders, and party organisation figures, a stint in Canberra [Australia's capital] is seen only as a necessary incident to going into the private sector to make a killing from one's 'insider' knowledge."

Waterford goes on to note that an Australian gambling tycoon, like so many industry leaders who hire lobbyists, "is not a man who believes in free markets, operating instead in a world where the 'right' to make a fortune turns on getting discretionary favours, such as gambling licences and public land (and in an earlier life, spectrum and television licences) from governments. As a result, the family empire has long hired many former insiders, Labor and Liberal, to open doors, demand favours, bulldoze obstacles, and punish enemies." You don't see "punish enemies" listed in too many lobbyists' job descriptions.

What makes the editorial very special is what Waterford considers the essential problem with lobbying by former officials, because it goes to the essence of government ethics:

The new world of politics is dominated by a new political class that has nearly always operated professionally (as it were) in the realm of public policy and decision-making, before and after elected office. More and more retiring or dumped politicians are drifting easily into jobs where they continue to meet with, engage with and play politics with old mates. But they are now doing it for clients, not the advancement of public interests. The clients generally want to extract some favour or benefit from government, or to have suspended, for themselves at least, the operation of some general rule or principle that applies to everyone else. ... An insider lobbyist is not detached. He or she is no more than an agent of an interest, with no particular commitment to the overall public interest.

In other words, lobbying is not just another job for a public servant to look forward to. It is a rejection of what it is to be a public servant, that is, to act in the public interest.

Waterford also notes something that happens here in U.S., as well:  that "insider lobbyists seem to have made a particular point of getting themselves into powerful positions in party and party factional organisations. This gives them opportunities to meet, lean on and to pressure elected officials." And yet, as he notes, party officials are not under the jurisdiction of government ethics programs.

In fact, Australia's prime minister has said lobbyists should not hold party office. How many elected officials in the U.S. have said this?

Waterford notes that one of the biggest problems with regulating lobbyists is that most of them "are not, strictly, lobbyists in rulebook terms. Lawyers and commercial representatives and advocates do not have to register. Nor do those employed by a single client — perhaps an industry group, doctors' union, mining association, trade union or Aboriginal organisation. Nor people in bodies such as environmental groups, religious organisations, or those promoting the rights of refugees, or veterans."

He also notes that lobbyists do not simply protect corporate interests from official action, as it would appear from talk of "rights" and "protection of interests." "They want to be heard before problems are sitting on the desks of ministers." They are people who seek to make public policy, just as they were when they were in office, only for special interests rather than for the public interest.

Waterford discusses a particular case involving the Premier for New South Wales. "Having now seen evidence of the intensity of the lobbying of O'Farrell (and how close it came to be successful), ... I am no longer so sure the system had the checks and balances to make a good rather than a bad decision more likely. O'Farrell did the right thing, but the words pouring into his ear from self-proclaimed mates were not being adequately balanced by disinterested professional advice."

It isn't that insider lobbying should be absolutely forbidden. It's that it should be openly acknowledged by everyone involved so that there can be full transparency, registration by and regulation of everyone involved, and an attempt to provide information about all sides of a matter. If it isn't acknowledged that a matter exists, or that those involved are lobbying and have special interests and connections, how can there possibly be transparency or fairness? When officials do not demand transparency and fairness, which are in the public interest, it appears to the public that there is little difference between officials and the former officials who represent special interests (this is made worse by the belief that officials use their positions to help themselves get lobbying jobs when they leave office). When things are as they are, how can the public believe that its representatives are considering all sides of an issue and making a decision in the public interest any more than the former officials who care only about the special interests who pay their salary?

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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