Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Lobbyists have too much power in parliament. I don't think the general public truly understands how bad this problem is. There are 15 lobbyists for every politician in this place, representing everything from the fossil fuel industry and the banks to big tobacco and big pharma. Those vested interests wouldn't spend millions of dollars on lobbyists if it didn't work.

I've seen lobbyists ply their trade firsthand over the last two years. Here's how it works. When the lobbyists get to Parliament House, they get special passes which give them full access to the building. They can, and they do, roam the corridors, meeting with MPs at will. Often, the lobbyists are former politicians themselves, who have been hired because of the connections that they have with the major parties.

Our laws shouldn't be bought. They shouldn't be written for vested interests. They should be made in the public interest.

The reality is that the major parties won't act to improve trust in politics until we force them to. That's why I launched a national grassroots campaign last year to pass the 'clean up politics act', to stop lobbyists undermining democracy in Australia—and it is working. The campaign is supported by peak integrity bodies and industry groups. Most importantly, it has garnered significant support from the people of Kooyong and other electorates around Australia. People are sick of being taken for a ride by political processes, subverted in favour of those with an inside track to our politicians.

We have now secured a Senate inquiry into lobbying, because thousands of people around Australia stood up and demanded that the government finally regulate lobbying. The more than 8,000 people who have signed my 'clean up politics act' petition have moved us one step closer towards stopping that revolving door, so that former politicians can't move straight from politics into a cushy lobbying job. But this is only happening because people around the country are standing up and demanding integrity in politics. They've moved us one step closer to expanding the lobbying register so that it covers all lobbyists, not just a small fraction of the thousands of people walking the halls of this place and influencing the decisions we make here.

We've also moved one step closer to opening up ministerial diaries, so that we can see who our ministers are meeting with and why. This 'clean up politics act' is our chance to stand up for integrity, democracy and transparency. I thank you all for your support so far. The major parties might not want to regulate lobbyists, but if thousands more Australians keep advocating for this, we will win.

One of the major problems for the major parties is that they have to keep making the lobbying reform case for us. They're doing it every day. We don't have to work at it; the major political parties are laying it all out for us. Just last week, the member for Cook told us that he was resigning from parliament. The former Prime Minister is moving immediately into a job with one of the largest investors in the $368 billion AUKUS defence pact. That should not be allowed. No politician should make decisions at the top levels of government—in some cases in as many as five ministries—and then go straight into helping a private organisation profit from those decisions. And yet it happens all the time. Every single Australian energy minister since 2001 has gone to work in the fossil fuel industry soon after leaving parliament. No-one is under any illusion as to why these former politicians are hired as lobbyists. It's because they give vested interests a big foot in the door.

Vested interests are desperate to influence laws to help them improve their profits, not our country. My 'clean up politics act' will shut that revolving door. It will prevent former ministers and their senior staff from becoming lobbyists for up to three years after leaving parliament. The 'clean up politics act' has never been more urgent, and yet the Liberal Party and the Labor Party refuse to even discuss it. The fact that they won't debate it says enough, in and of itself.