Ross Gittins has continued his stellar form of late with a great piece on the lobbying that has infested the nation’s capital:
You and I don’t expect to be consulted before governments announce their policy decisions, so what gives these people [lobbyists] the right to special treatment?
Well, I’ll tell you: it’s because that’s the way they’re used to being treated. Governments are considering making changes affecting a powerful and vocal interest group, so they – and more particularly, the top bureaucrats in the relevant government department – engage in private discussions with industry leaders and lobbyists…
I think industry representatives are routinely consulted on policy matters affecting them because, in practice, elected governments have come to share their power with a multitude of lobby groups.
You and I don’t see the huge extent of contact that occurs between peak industry groups, consultant lobbyists and visiting executives, on one hand, and ministers, parliamentarians and bureaucrats on the other.
Indeed, we non-Canberrans don’t realise the extent to which lobbying has become that city’s second-biggest industry. That’s particularly so if you include Canberra’s small army of economic consultants, who earn their living by concocting “independent” modelling which, purely by chance, always seems to prove their clients’ case.
And that’s not counting the big four accounting firms which, when they’re not doing “independent” modelling for the small fee, give extensive – and no doubt expensive – consulting advice on policy questions to government departments.
Why do they need such advice? Why is policy expertise moving from the public service to outside consultants? Because the yearly imposition of “efficiency dividends” on government departments means they keep getting rid of their policy experts. The words “false economy” spring to mind…
Lobbying in public is just the tip of the iceberg. What matters is all the private contact with bureaucrats, ministers and politicians, particularly crossbench senators, we know nothing about.
Well said. Every time I read the word’s “independent research”, I immediately look at the author and who has commissioned the work. More often than not, it has been paid for by a lobbyist seeking to influence policy for their own advantage (e.g. the property lobby’s various ‘modelling’ reports on negative gearing).
Cameron Murray’s new book, Game of Mates, also discusses these murky relationships between lobbyists and government in great detail and is highly recommended.
