Crackdown on political lobbyists does not go far enough

Five years after the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) recommended the overhaul of rules governing political lobbyists, the Minns government has announced a series of reforms that will make the NSW Electoral Commission regulate the influence pedlars and force third-party lobbyists to disclose links to local councils.

The reforms are welcome, particularly the requirement that will force third-party lobbyists to disclose links to local councils for the first time.

However, they are a watered-down response to 29 recommendations made by the ICAC five years ago, which included prohibiting secret meetings between lobbyists and government officials, more frequent publication of ministerial diaries, a ban on gifts, post-employment restrictions for highly placed public servants and, importantly, former staffers, and an independent regulator.

Instead, the Minns government opted to impose just a six-month ban for some senior public servants, while not extending it to ministerial staff. Similarly, in-house lobbyists will continue to be exempt from lobbyist disclosure rules. Ministerial diaries would be “enhanced” to make them “consolidated and searchable”, while the rules would be clarified to ensure disclosure is required for fundraising events involving exclusive or private access to a minister.

And rather than establish a new lobbying regulator, the Minns government will formalise the NSW Electoral Commission’s role as the watchdog for lobbyists and give it the power to force government agencies and officials to hand over relevant records for compliance audits.

Resources are an issue for the commission; in August, Commissioner Rachel McCallum wrote to a parliamentary committee warning that the government’s refusal to fund an overhaul of its antiquated IT systems could lead to “an intolerable level of risk of election failure” at future polls, including the coming state election in March.

Minns’ reforms follow the ICAC’s groundbreaking Operation Rosny inquiry that exposed links between senior Liberal Party operatives and the fugitive property developer Jean Nassif.

The inquiry emerged out of claims aired in parliament by Liberal MP Ray Williams in 2022 that party figures and lobbyists had been paid by Nassif to install new councillors on The Hills Shire Council who would be sympathetic to the developer. While the ICAC said it found no evidence that had occurred – instead, it homed in on alleged plots to influence the former state Coalition government – the Herald has previously reported that the men were members of a group known as the NSW Reformers, which aimed to control the state division of the Liberal Party by signing up members to win preselection ballots.

Once again the ICAC has shown that its work never finishes. It began to look at corruption 38 years ago, and Operation Rosny is a reminder that pervasive political lobbying continues in our state.

We have every right to expect high standards of behaviour from our politicians and senior bureaucrats. While the reforms to lobbying are welcome, they are belated. We believe they should have gone much further; the time for beating around the bush has long passed.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.