Lobbying (Improving Government Honesty and Trust) Bill 2025

Senator ANANDA-RAJAH (Victoria) (09:48): The government will not be supporting the Lobbying (Improving Government Honesty and Trust) Bill 2025. Senator Pocock and some members of the crossbench, including the Greens and possibly even the Liberals—which is astounding—have made themselves the self-styled prefects of this parliament. They ensure that we all have our ties straight and our shoes polished.

Yet, when I look back on the track record, it's not them who ushered in the National Anti-Corruption Commission, which we did in our first term of government—this Labor government. They were a footnote in history, but history will show that it was the Albanese Labor government of the 47th Parliament— Honourable senators interjecting— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Marielle Smith ): Order!

Senator Ananda-Rajah sat in silence while other senators made their contribution, and I expect that she's given the same courtesy. Senator ANANDA-RAJAH: The truth hurts. History will show that it was the Albanese Labor government in the 47th parliament, when it was elected in 2022, that within a year of election established, as promised, the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

What a legacy that was. That wasn't all we did. If you recall, there was this small issue that was lingering for many, many years called robodebt.

Has anyone forgotten that? Robodebt was an absolute calamity for this nation, a complete and utter systemic failure of public administration, and it happened under the Liberals' watch. It was the Liberals who basically did nothing about robodebt but fuel it.

It led to an immense amount of suffering for 430,000 Australians. Never forget that. It was this Labor government—not the crossbench, not Senator Pocock, not anyone else—that led the royal commission into robodebt.

There were many recommendations and lessons that were learnt, which we are now working through and will enact, and will strengthen integrity in this country, ensuring that our most vulnerable are never subjected to that again. We—not them, not anyone else, not any of the other passengers in this place—also are the ones who implemented the Bell inquiry recommendations to improve transparency and accountability and to restore public trust in Australian democracy.

Senator Allman-Payne interjecting— Senator ANANDA-RAJAH: I'll take the contributions from the Greens political party. Let's look at the Greens. The Greens stand here and champion transparency and openness, yet within their own political party they evict people over contested issues.

What is it? Maybe you can help me out here. Maybe it's gender diversity.

Those conversations are shut down and people are evicted. You even kicked out one of your own co-founders, Drew Hutton. Honourable senators interjecting— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Ananda-Rajah, I remind you to direct your comments through the chair.

I've already called other senators to order. It's disrespectful not just to the speaker but to me in the chair. Senator ANANDA-RAJAH: The Greens political party come into this place and talk the big game, but they've got a few housekeeping issues that they need to address.

One of those is why exactly their co-founder, Drew Hutton, leave—or was he expelled? We don't know; it's all a little bit murky. There was also—and I still remember the case—Alex Bhathal, a candidate in Melbourne in Victoria, who basically accused her own party, the Greens, of bullying.

What came of it? Crickets, absolutely nothing. The pure-as-snow Greens political party like to come in here, wave their finger at the Labor government and lecture the rest of us, but they don't want to really open that black box and do their own housekeeping.

Never forget that. Going back to this Labor government's record on integrity, we also cleaned up the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. That old chestnut was a millstone around this country's neck when we came to government in 2022.

It had been absolutely stacked with a bunch of Liberal mates, cronies and hacks. We basically completely abolished it and created what is called the Administrative Review Tribunal, the ART, a new federal body that is user focused, efficient, accessible, independent and fair, and has merit based appointments. It's not just putting your buddies on there to do your work—those people who were failed politicians or would-be politicians.

That's not all. We also strengthened provisions of the Public Service Act 1999 to make it clear that ministers cannot direct agency heads on employment matters. I remember that in the other house, in the first term of government, I spoke about this.

I remember speaking distinctly about the importance of ensuring separation of powers with respect to our Public Service. As we know, in the aftermath of robodebt, the Australian Public Service, a venerated institution in this country, had been absolutely gutted. It was cowering in the corner after 10 years of coalition rule, leading to the catastrophe that was robodebt.

We brought in legislation to ensure that we strengthen the independence and integrity of the APS so that it can provide free and fearless advice to government. We established an APS Integrity Taskforce to identify gaps and opportunities to deliver system-wide integrity improvements in the Australian Public Service. That's not all.

I'm reading out a few of them, but that's not all. These are some of my favourites. I want to pay tribute also to the previous attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, for his work in this space.

He quietly went about doing it, but he brought in significant reforms as part of a broader integrity agenda—things that are foreign to the Liberal and National parties—completely alien. We also strengthened the whistleblower protections, knowing that there is more work to do. The first tranche was reforms to the Public Interest Disclosure Act.

These reforms implemented 21 of 33 recommendations of the Moss review. When was that Moss review handed down? Was it in 2022 or 2021 or 2020?

Actually, it was in 2016, and, FYI, it wasn't us in power then. It was the opposition. Why didn't they act on it?

I'm not sure, but perhaps we wouldn't have had some of the issues around whistleblowers doing the right thing but getting persecuted for it had the recommendations been enacted. I cite specifically the case of Mr Richard Boyle, who was recently exonerated. He should never have gone through that kind of suffering.

My heart goes out to him and his family. Had these whistleblower protections actually been enacted by the previous government, maybe all of that would have been prevented and maybe taxpayers would have saved a few bucks. We have now commenced work on the second stage of reforms to ensure that the Commonwealth public sector— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Pocock, on a point of order?

Senator David Pocock: I have a point of order on relevance. This is about lobbying reform, not whistleblowers. I understand it's a filibuster, but if it could be specific to lobbying, that'd be great.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Pocock. I'll draw the senator's attention to the topic of the debate, but, in my observation, she has been generally relevant over the course of it. Senator ANANDA-RAJAH: I think that context is important.

It is very important that I lay out the context before I start talking about the substance of this private member's bill. Context matters. With respect to our broad based integrity agenda, we are now working on a second stage of reforms that will strengthen the whistleblower framework, and next week we're going to be opening that up to public consultation.

I encourage all Australians who are interested in whistleblowing to make a contribution—not just the peak bodies but all Australians. We certainly have committed to establishing a whistleblower ombudsman, which I think is a very welcome step. We have also proudly rejoined what is called the Open Government Partnership.

This turns out to be an international alliance of countries that are determined to progress transparency in government. It is this Labor government that did that. We have passed new laws—and I'm particularly proud of this—to improve the detection and prosecution of foreign bribery, influence and, particularly, money laundering in this country through mechanisms like real estate and even jewellery, precious metals and stones.

There are now much stronger protections around those kinds of activities. Of course, let's not forget that we passed the Respect at Work legislation, not in piecemeal fashion but in its entirety. That was a piece of work that was left half done by the previous government.

When we came to government, this parliament was stained with a reputation of toxicity and alcohol-fuelled behaviours and partying. It looked nothing like a professional workplace. The injection of a large cohort of women parliamentarians through the Albanese Labor government means that we've seen an uplift in standards in this place.

I pay tribute to the work of the member for Newcastle, the Deputy Speaker in the other place, Sharon Claydon, and Minister Katy Gallagher in pushing this work through. It's incredibly important. Now let's go to the matter of the lobbying register.

I have just laid out a catalogue of all of the Albanese Labor government's achievements on integrity. It was a very broad based agenda. It was far-reaching, touching on many aspects: corruption, strengthening the Public Service, whistleblower protections and improving the standards and behaviour of parliamentarians in this place.

But there is now the important matter of how we manage lobbying in government. Speaking to another Labor government legacy, the Lobbying Code of Conduct was introduced by the Rudd Labor government in 2008. It applies to ministerial staff and ministers.

In 2008, Senator Faulkner—and I'll read it out because his words were prescient and they apply to today as well—said: The Government recognises that lobbying is a legitimate activity and part of the democratic process. Lobbyists can help individuals and organisations communicate their views on matters of public interest to the Government and, in doing so, improve outcomes for the individual and community as a whole.

However, there is a legitimate concern that Ministers, their staff and officials who are the target of lobbying activities are not always fully informed as to the identity of the people who have engaged a lobbyist to speak on their behalf. The Government believes that this information can be fundamental to the integrity of its decisions and should be freely available to those who are lobbied and to the wider public.

So we established a lobbying code of conduct which extended to third-party lobbyists. For people watching, third-party lobbyists are basically on a register now. They're listed on a register.

Companies or even not-for-profits, for example, can approach them and seek their services, which are paid for, usually, and then they go to work to try and seek meetings with ministers or parliamentarians, for example, in Parliament House. They are registered. The substance of this bill, I think, that Senator Pocock has put forward is to now extend that to in-house lobbyists.

That means the people who come through Parliament House who have sponsored passes. The two are quite separate. The sponsored pass list is managed by the parliament and the people who have carriage over that are the presiding officers.

It's not the government. It's held at arm's length from that. Returning to the issue of the lobbyist register, if there are breaches of that, it comes with penalties.

The registration obligations now put forward in this bill seek to extend this to in-house lobbyists. I'm happy to speak about some of the people who lobby me. It's not Woodside.

It's actually renewable energy companies and a lot of community groups, and I never say no to them. They're welcome to come and see me in my electorate office or here. Of course, it's also a lot of pharmaceutical companies because of my background as a doctor and my previous membership on the Standing Committee on Health in the other place.

The code currently prohibits former ministers from lobbying on matters that they had official dealings with for at least 18 months after they've left office. So there is a lockout period baked in because we recognise that we have to protect the public and private sectors against integrity risks, knowing full well that we also have the National Anti-Corruption Commission, which has all the powers of a royal commission and can investigate any claim, complaint or concern put forward by any member of the public.

So that is the outline of our track record. (Time expired)