Lobbying is legit – so let’s have the laws to prove it
Despite its Machiavellian standing in the public imagination, there’s nothing inherently wrong with lobbying, or government relations as it’s called in polite company. A problem only arises when a lobbyist has a serious conflict of interest they fail to declare, as in the case of Barry Ebert. Stuff revealed last week that Ebert remained a director of his lobbying firm and took three ‘‘communications and research’’ contracts while also employed part-time in Phil Twyford’s office.
The contracts weren’t disclosed to Ebert’s employer, the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), which believed he hadn’t taken any work since 2017. Ebert maintains there was no conflict of interest, as does the prime minister, and while there’s no suggestion of any wrongdoing, the lack of proper disclosure is concerning. He won’t disclose the names of his clients – and short of the prime minister forcing his hand, we’ve no choice but to take him at his word.
That puts New Zealand in the unacceptable position of having to rely on lobbyists to themselves declare if they have a conflict of interest. One would think, if they are conflicted, such a person might think twice about declaring anything at all.
Surely any commercial work undertaken while working in the Beehive should be disclosed to the DIA, which acts as the official employer of staffers. It’s in a better position to decide what is and is not conflicted.
Lobbying fulfils a vital role in a democracy. Everyone has a right to make their case to the government, be they environmental advocacy groups, ordinary citizens, or large firms. Lobbying is rarely the nefarious ‘‘smoke-filled rooms’’ variety we imagine from the movies – a dodgy drug company trying to get a national health contract, for example. It’s more mundane than that.
It involves prepping people for select committee hearings, meeting ministers, and advising people on how best to make their case to the government. This is important. Government decisions affect every business. They need and deserve the ability to make a good case about how changes affect them.
An example of this is the foreign buyers ban, a popular piece of law that effectively made it impossible for foreigners to buy residential housing. The way the law worked was to reclassify all residential land as ‘‘sensitive’’, meaning any buyer would need to go through the Overseas Investment Office process to buy it, essentially rendering this impossible for non-resident buyers.
But there were a few kinks. The telcos, technically foreign companies because of their significant overseas shareholdings, complained that the law would encompass all the cell towers they had in residential areas. Every time they put up a tower, they’d have to go through an expensive and timeconsuming process and risk being turned down.
The law as it stood would have made rolling out updates like 5G prohibitively expensive. This isn’t an isolated case. Ministers are rarely subject specialists; consulting on proposals and discussing it with lobbyists is part of working out good law.
In the case of the foreign buyers ban, the telcos flagged their concerns in a suite of select committee submissions and the problem was solved. The law passed, with a fudge for cell towers.
That’s the good kind of government relations. But the nefarious kind does exist – and New Zealand should strengthen rules around disclosure to guard against it.
There are some obvious problems with lobbying. A wealthy person or a corporation will be able to afford better lobbyists, and therefore their influence on policy can increase in proportion to their wealth. That raises serious problems in a democracy, which presumes each citizen has an equal stake or voice in their government, regardless of who they are.
Lobbying is rarely the nefarious ‘‘smokefilled rooms’’ variety we imagine from the movies ... It’s more mundane than that.
For that reason, many countries around the world strictly regulate the lobbying industry to curb the level of influence they have: it’s never going to be perfect, but the idea is fewer smoke-filled rooms, and more earnest select committees.
Lobbyists aren’t just selling their skills. They’re selling their access too. In Wellington, lobbying firms understandably tend to draw from former staffers, right up to former prime ministerial chiefs of staff. These people have important skills and good relationships, in the streamlined world of New Zealand politics. Unlike in the United States, there aren’t juicy backroom party roles to go to, and New Zealand doesn’t have the plethora of political strategy firms or think-tanks that make good postparliamentary careers.
All this makes it staggering that New Zealand is so laissez-faire when it comes to lobbying, which is almost entirely unregulated. The US, for example, forces lobbyists to disclose who they’re acting for, how much they were paid for the contract, and their lobbying expenses.
Lobbyists themselves should be clamouring for greater disclosure. If there really isn’t anything wrong with lobbying, they shouldn’t be afraid of what some disclosure will reveal.