David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) Australians overwhelmingly support a full ban on gambling advertisements,

(ii) Australians are denied access to information that would reveal the influence of the gambling industry on Commonwealth ministers and parliamentarians through:

(A) secrecy around ministerial diaries, and

(B) a complete lack of transparency around parliamentary passes provided to lobbyists; and

(b) calls on the Government to:

(i) legislate a complete ban on gambling advertising,

(ii) provide transparency around sponsored passes provided to lobbyists, and

(iii) publish ministerial diaries.

Thank you, Acting Deputy President O'Sullivan, for staying back late for this debate. Today I want to talk about lobbying. Right now, with the current debate on gambling advertising, we are getting a real-time look at how lobbying and unseen influence can change the trajectory of public policy. I heard the Prime Minister on the radio this morning talking about gambling advertising, and, to be frank, I was disappointed. Here's what he had to say:

The experts say that the problem here with this debate, Patricia, is the problem isn't advertising. The problem is gambling. That's the problem. And when you look at what the fact is that, overwhelmingly, almost 70 per cent of problem gambling is about poker machines, an additional about 15 per cent is about lotteries and lottos and those things. I haven't seen a campaign about advertising in lotteries and Lotto, which is a far bigger problem than sports gambling.

After that interview, I reached out to Professor Samantha Thomas at Deakin University to verify those figures. For the benefit of those who may not have met Professor Thomas, she is widely regarded as one of the country's foremost experts in gambling harm. She and her team looked for the figures the Prime Minister mentioned, and they couldn't find them. Unless those figures are some sort of back-of-the-napkin calculations, they don't appear to be publicly available. What they were able to send me was data from the government's own Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, which shows that, of the people who gamble at least weekly on sports, 74 per cent are at risk of harm. Compare that to the people who gamble weekly on lotteries, where just 48 per cent are at risk of harm.

The suggestion that lotteries are somehow more of a threat to public health than sports betting is weird. Frankly, it sounds like something that you would read in a submission from the wagering industry. Actually, it's exactly something you can read in their submission. In their evidence to the Murphy inquiry, Responsible Wagering Australia, the body representing the likes of Sportsbet, were very eager to point out that sports betting is just one form of gambling—as if the Lotto broadcast a million ads in a single year targeting children and young people! It's called deflection, and it's an old trick popularised by the tobacco industry: 'Don't look at us; look over there.'

But this is, unfortunately, not the first time that the Prime Minister has parroted gambling industry talking points. Just a few weeks ago, the Prime Minister was caught out, again and again, saying that if we banned gambling ads then more people would be pushed towards the illegal offshore market. This is also untrue. For one, the illegal offshore gambling industry is illegal, and that's why we have given powers to the regulator to block offshore gambling sites. But also there's also just no evidence that it happens. Countries across the world that have banned gambling advertising report that they have not seen an increase in offshore gambling.

The gambling industry is always keen to say it's happening in Norway, where they do not show gambling ads and haven't done so for a while. Well, here's what the Norwegian gambling operator had to say on Radio National: '94 per cent of all customers who place bets on sport do so at Norsk Tipping,' which is the state-owned gambling operator. This means that less than six per cent of gamblers place bets offshore.

Where is the Prime Minister getting his lines from? Who is actually writing his talking points? Why is he telling us that banning gambling ads would lead to more people gambling illegally, when there's no evidence to support that? Why is he telling us that the problem is gambling generally, when everyone agrees that the problem is the gambling industry targeting young people through ads and normalising gambling? Why is he telling us that lotteries are a bigger problem than sports betting, when they manifestly are not? Why is he fighting so hard to defend the profits of bookmakers, when the vast majority of Australians, the vast majority of parents and even the government's hand-picked experts on domestic violence say gambling ads should be banned, just like tobacco ads were? All of these positions sound suspiciously similar to what we hear advanced by the gambling industry and the companies who profit from it.

I know that I'm not alone in feeling concerned that the gambling industry has too much influence over the government. We're talking about an industry that has donated more than $11 million to political parties since the 1998-99 financial year—an industry that stands between Australians and sensible reform to protect us from gambling harm. But, frustratingly, outside of large donations, we don't know how the gambling industry is influencing the government. We don't know which industry lobbyists have access to members and senators. We don't even know who those lobbyists are. There are now more than 2,000 sponsored passes issued, giving access to all areas of this building. Many of these passes are issued to lobbyists, and we can only assume that a reasonable number of those lobbyists work for the gambling industry. So how many gambling lobbyists have access-all-areas passes? Which companies do they represent? Australians are prevented from knowing this information. And for what reason? What possible justification could there be for denying basic transparency on who has access to the people's house?

Earlier this year, I referred an inquiry into lobbyists' passes to the Finance and Public Administration Committee. A primary reason that was given by the Department of Parliamentary Services was that disclosing the identities of lobbyists would contravene their privacy policy, which draws on the Privacy Act. During the inquiry, I requested any legal advice provided to DPS on disclosure of the names of lobbyists with sponsored passes. That advice, provided in confidence to the committee, makes it crystal clear just how easy it would be to provide Australians with transparency around details of lobbyists' passes. But when I put forward a motion to seek disclosure of this advice—legal advice to the Secretary of DPS—the major parties teamed up to prevent people from understanding how easy it could be to improve transparency around who can access this building. We're elected representatives, and I believe that Australians deserve to know who we are sponsoring in terms of access to Parliament House.

Here are a few of the key details from the advice. The first thing to note—which is rather comical, given the excuse about the Privacy Act—is that the Privacy Act does not apply to DPS, so the department is free to publicise details of lobbyist passes. Despite this, there is a strong argument for the act and the Privacy Principles to be complied with, even if they don't strictly apply to DPS. Accepting this, there are three options for changes that would allow proper transparency to apply to lobbyist passes. First, DPS could change its privacy policy to allow transparency, so that details of lobbyist passes could be published freely. This would be an easy fix. Second, DPS could simply inform lobbyists applying for a pass that their name, the company or organisation they represent and the sponsoring parliamentarian will be disclosed. Third, the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate could choose to disclose the information. Given how simple these changes are, the questions need to be asked: Why haven't we seen transparency? What is being hidden from the Australian public? Our communities expect better than this. I hear that all the time. They expect transparency around lobbying as a bare minimum.

I absolutely accept that lobbying, conducted ethically and transparently, plays a genuine and important role in our democracy. Again, no-one is saying we should ban lobbyists. All we're saying is that there should be transparency about who is entering this building. Advocacy groups, businesses, NGOs and community representatives often work tirelessly to ensure that the voices of ordinary Australians are heard in this place. These groups provide crucial expertise. They advocate for social change and push for policies that serve the public interest. But when gambling lobbyists start to pour through the doors of Parliament House with all-access passes, Australians should know about it. When they're influencing government policy to allow the corrosive and often deadly advertising of their products to continue, Australians should know about it. But any undue influence they have is unknown and unchecked.

Beyond additional transparency for lobbyist passes, significant reform of the lobbying rules is urgently needed. It is crucial that we know who lobbyists are meeting with, what issues they're discussing and what decisions they're influencing. If Sportsbet is meeting with the communications minister, Australians should know, because Australians deserve to know that their elected representatives are working in their best interests and not for the highest bidder or the one with the most influence. We need comprehensive reforms to strengthen lobbying regulations and close the existing loopholes.

Further to transparency around lobbyist passes, three urgent changes are needed. First, we must expand the lobbyist register to include in-house lobbyists. All lobbyists, regardless of whether they work for a firm or are employed directly by a corporation, should be required to disclose their activities. Second, we need to introduce a cooling-off period of at least five years for politicians and senior public servants before they can engage in lobbying activities. This will help prevent conflicts of interest and limit the influence of former officials on government policy. Third, real-time disclosure of lobbying meetings, through publication of ministerial diaries, is essential. Again, Labor fought for this in opposition. Now that they're in government, they don't want to release diaries. Too often, those with wealth and power have direct unregulated access to decision-makers, while ordinary Australians are left on the sidelines.

We've seen repeated instances of senior politicians leaving public office only to take up lucrative positions in industries that they once regulated and using that knowledge, clearly, to help their new employer. This revolving door between government and corporate interests creates serious conflicts of interest and perceived conflicts of interest and undermines public confidence in the political process. Between 1998 and 2022, nearly 30 per cent of former federal politicians moved directly into roles with lobbying firms or corporations they had interacted with during their time in office. That's a sobering thought, and I think we should have some parameters about where they can move. This is not just a matter of perception; it's a structural issue that needs to be addressed. Australians have the right to know in a timely manner who is influencing government decisions. This includes regular updates on meetings between lobbyists and senior officials, minister and their staff. Surely, in this area, transparency should be the default, not the exception?

At the heart of this issue is the need to restore public confidence in our democracy, because, when people believe that decisions are being made behind closed doors, trust in the entire system is eroded. We are facing some huge challenges as a country and globally, and we should be doing everything we can to build trust in institutions, to build trust in government. When we have these sorts of secret arrangements and we have the major parties constantly voting against efforts of the crossbench to make things more transparent, we're not doing that. We're actually eroding trust at a time when we should be doing everything that we can to continue to build that. We've seen startling examples globally of what happens when trust in our democratic systems is eroded. It's critical that we take steps to strengthen, rather than diminish, faith in our political system here in Australia.

By improving lobbying transparency, we can help ensure that our political system works for everyone, not just those with deep pockets who have enough money and power to purchase influence. The integrity of our democracy depends on it. I would urge my colleagues in the Senate to take this seriously.