How business groups dominate our politicians

The Grattan Institute has released analysis on which groups hold the most influence over Australian policy making. And not surprisingly, the business lobby dominates:

As Figure 2 shows, the financial and professional services industries together represented 57 per cent of the 400 submissions to the Tax White Paper from organisations, despite collectively representing only 18 per cent of the economy. These types of businesses tend to be most familiar with the tax system – after all, tax advice is a big part of what they do. But the flip side is that they also have a larger vested interest than most.

Highly motivated and well-resourced interests have greater capacity to organise and contribute to policy review processes. And this can translate to policy influence. Our research shows that Australia’s checks and balances on influence are weak, and that sometimes bad policy is made or good policy is dropped because powerful groups have more say than they should. As Figure 3 shows, researchers at the ANU have found that business groups are more than twice as likely to be mentioned in parliamentary debates as any other type of interest group – a sign of prominence and likely influence.